The Who guitarist Pete Townshend has opened up about his past feelings for men in the music industry – including Rolling Stones frontman Sir Mick Jagger.
The 79-year-old rocker – who rose to fame as the co-founder and guitarist of The Who in the 60s and 70s – has long been vocal about his historic flings and at one point identified as pansexual.
Talking about this aspect of his life, he shared that he ‘very much enjoyed’ the couple of ‘homosexual affairs’ that he had.
He added: ‘I’ve made a couple of really close friends that I’m still friendly with today. But it wasn’t what worked for me, sexually speaking – and didn’t fit into my life, somehow.’
The music artist had three children in his long-term marriage to his first wife Karen who he divorced in 1994. He then secretly married composer Rachel Fuller in 2016.
There is one past spark he hasn’t forgotten about, however, sharing: ‘I was very sexually attracted to [Sir Mick, 81]. And possibly to a few other people in my life.’
In particular, he pointed to The Who’s late co-manager Kit Lambert for whom he ‘possibly had secret sexual feelings’ although he clarified it wasn’t reciprocated, which he told Record Collector magazine as per the Daily Mail.
In 2012, Pete leapt to Sir Mick’s defence when the size of his penis was disparaged by Rolling Stones bandmate Keith Richards.
‘What I remember of the size of Mick Jagger’s penis — I remember it as being huge and extremely tasty,’ he said at a press conference according to the Hollywood Reporter.
He opened up further about his feelings for the singer in his 2012 autobiography, Who I Am.
‘Mick is the only man I’ve ever seriously wanted to f**k,’ he wrote in his book as per NME.
There are various songs over the years alluding to his sexuality in Pete’s discography.
In 2021, he opened up about the inspiration behind his 1966 single, I’m A Boy, in Rock Cellar Magazine.
‘It’s the idea of masculinity and the way that men are seen to be at a time when I often forget, to be homosexual, to be pansexual, as I think I probably was, but not anymore.
‘But I think I was ready to fall into bed with anybody that would have me,’ he explained.
Similarly, he spoke about his single Rough Boys from solo album Empty Glass in Newsweek in 1990.
He said: ‘In a way, it was a coming-out. That it was a real acknowledgement of the fact that I’d been surrounded by people that I really adored – and was actually sexually attracted to – who were men.
‘And that the side of me that responded to those people was a passive side, a subordinate side,’ he said.
As for whether The Who is likely ever to reunite, Townshend has confirmed it is unlikely considering he is not on speaking terms with bandmate Roger Daltrey after a long, strained relationship.
‘I don’t know what’s gonna happen with The Who,’ Townshend told The Daily Beast.
‘I’m hoping Roger [Daltrey] and I can find some common ground and find some way to work again, possibly without an orchestra, because I think we’ve done that. But also, there’s this sense that we’re in the last tour period of our career.’
He added that they ‘don’t talk’ so they might have a ‘bit of a river to cross’ if a reunion was going to happen.
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