Eldergays, Tell me about when Calvin Klein was Straight

Yes, there were rumors, even when he was "straight."

Yes, he was pinging back then. Him being married to a woman was a head-scratcher. My gaydar was nonexistent back then, but it was apparent to me.

It was a reaction to the AIDS epidemic and the very real fear that his business would take a nose dive if middle America found out he was gay. Keep in mind Perry Ellis had died of AIDS by then and rumors were also swirling about Klein because he was rather thin.

So he sold his houses in Fire Island and Key West, offered an amazing deal to a design assistant in his office named Kelly Rector, and she signed a contract to become Kelly Klein. It was also quite literally a marketing angle of the launch of the Eternity fragrance.

Nobody can deny that Klein was a marketing genius who always had his finger on the cultural pulse of the country. Easy sex and the more liberal attitudes of the 1970s were over and so Klein positioned himself and the image of “Calvin Klein” the company to better suit the conservative climate of the Reagan 1980’s.

He and Kelly always had separate apartments in Manhattan even after the “marriage”, but ostensibly shared a house he bought for her on Georgica Pond in East Hampton.

When the contract was up and they “divorced”., she got a sweet deal including the East Hampton house and a huge cash and stock settlement. They remain friendly even today.

R3 = Translation

Klein was a closet case who hid behind a beard to get rich and watch thousands of men died of AIDS and did nothing about it until popular to do so.

r3, Calvin Klein was married way before the AIDS epidemic.

I knew a few people that worked in the studio at Calvin Klein and were friendly with Kelly before the marriage. Their take was that although she walked into the marriage knowing full well that is wasn’t really love and that Calvin was gay, the first year was way harder than she expected.

She was apparently a bit naive to the fact that although consumers and people outside the New York/LA fashion and social scenes wouldn’t question the marriage, everybody in NYC and LA of course knew the score and she felt really humiliated that there wasn’t even the pretense of their relationship being for real.

Supposedly Barry D, Sandy G, and David G were also super nasty and hostile to her at first when Calvin insisted on bringing her along on trips and social outings with them, but later warmed up to her a little bit.

R5 that was his first wife Jayne whom he married in 1964 way before he became a success and by most accounts was the classic scenario of marrying to mask your true sexuality.

Klein himself has admitted in interviews that the marriage was essentially on the rocks within a year, but they stayed together about 9 years because of having had a kid. Although for much of that time he wasn’t actually living with Jayne.

Even way back when he married Kelly, gays and straights everywhere knew Calvin was gay. I was a gayling in Boston at the time, and I knew he was gay. In the early '80s, I went to the Pines in Fire Island and saw his house and leaned over the fence in the backyard and saw his two-lane lap pool, It was painted black to keep the water warm.

R4 yes Kelly Klein was the beard to end all beards. She even outpaced DVF is that’s possible!

He was married TWICE, everyone forgets about the first wife. R6 well that’s rich considering that Barry diller is married to a woman. And while many act like it’s a know ‘deal’ and that they are just fag and fag gag. That he harried so her children could inherit his billions. However, that’s not true. Diane has on several occasions taken offence that suggestions it is a sexual and romantic relationship; she claims they dated on and off for several DECADES and that he Barry begged her to marry him as she was the only person he loved etc.

Barry is a gross old faggot. And now we live in a world where Barry has never come out and has gotten married to a woman, while Calvin has come out

Yeah the first wife was to please his parents... the second wife was to please his investors and his own bank account.

What did he do to his face? I have never seen saggy folds like that on old people ever.

LESBIANISM MOST FOUL!!!!!!!!

I don’t think Kelly is or was a lesbian. She has been with a guy named Nick Manifold for a long time now and they have a cute kid.

Kelly far left, the kid and Nick on far right in this pic.

She was, however, a fag hag extraordinaire in the 1980s and 1990s.

He was an attractive man . I don’t know why he has done this to his cheeks and lips like a real Housewife. He looks like a freak now .

(R:12) I think he removed very large cheek implants and that’s what’s left of the ordeal . Like a fat person losing a huge amount of weight . The skin has no where to go . Looks better than monster cheeks ,though .

No it doesn't R16. It's like a woman who had large breast implants most of her life then got them removed without taking away the excess skin. Big saggy skin sacks, except that's what is on his face. It's boarding on performance art.

Whatever happened to aging gracefully?

[quote]Even way back when he married Kelly, gays and straights everywhere knew Calvin was gay.

Yeah. I was a kid back then too, and even I was aware that this was a bearding thing. Their body language together was just not what an older guy with a beautiful young trophy wife would have been. He pinged like fuck. It was so obviously a fag and his hag.

However, I will say that he couldn't have chosen any better than Kelly. She behaved with perfect decorum, and was the epitome of the whole Calvin Klein look and style. Modern but elegant. She did bring something to the table as an accessory that he didn't have alone.

[quote]What did he do to his face? I have never seen saggy folds like that on old people ever.

Too much PS gone bad. At lest he got rid of the duck lips.

There is a hilarious comment on the Kelly and Calvin situation in The Andy Warhol Diaries.

To the DIPSHIT above - Calvin married Kelly in 1986 in the THICK of the AIDS crisis. They began as a "couple" a year earlier. They divorced after about 20 years. Kelly had a baby with another guy when she was 50!!!

Thank you, Rose r14

In the early 90s I worked at a couple Calvin Klein fashion shows on the production and met him and he was pleasant to everyone and focused. His staff were content, not harried. He must have been an OK boss. I kind of felt sorry for him around 2010 when ancient Calvin tried to play svengali so unsuccessfully with that rough trade Gruber. The replacement seems classier.

Everyone knew the score. Fashion Magazines commented openly about the ‘surprising ‘ marriage. It was obvious but you just thought ok, she seems like a cool young woman living a great life. I thought she fit into that scene very well and there wasn’t anything gross or depressing about it. I remember laughing when CK commented that Christy Turlington was so wonderful if he wasn’t already married he’d ask her. He really was great at selling an image back then.

I found Kelly and Calvin’s marriage to be extremely romantic!

Calvin Klein was [bold]never[/bold] straight.

His first wife’s father, according to the first bio written on Klein, was rather effeminate too. Maybe she had a type. Poor Calvin, so not aging well.

[quote] It was obvious but you just thought ok, she seems like a cool young woman living a great life.

Thanks for speaking for all of us, but actually I thought nothing of the kind. I thought she was greedy and trying for accommodation on the backs of gay men, particularly those suffering from AIDS.

According to Andy Warhols diaries, people knew that Calvin needed a bearding arrangement, and was shopping for a wife .

Bianca Jagger was aggressively perusing Calvin for the role, but Calvin turned her down. Andy wrote something about Calvin needing to marry a “real” woman and Bianca was a cartoon.

[quote]Calvin Klein was never straight.

hmmm....you don't say

Wow, 20 years seems like a long contract. Girl couldn’t negotiate a lesser deal?

The length is directly related to the pre-nup payout.

I met Calvin Klein at a party in United Nations Plaza (coop apt buildings) in NYC in about 1975, quite a while before he "married" Kelly. Cannot recall if he was married to his first wife (who had his daughter) at that time- perhaps. His best friend as far as I could tell was another designer, Chester Weinberg . They both went after me and my friend David. Never occurred to either one of us that Calvin was not gay- 100%. I found him pretentious and sort of like a few Jewish guys I met back then: kind of ashamed of their background and trying way to hard to be all things WASP. Chester was nice- Calvin- not so much. I admire his success but not much else. Years later in the 1980s I have another friend (also David) who was one Calvin's first string designers. He in fact when on to bigger things running the business of a European designer much bigger than Calvin. He did not like Calvin at all. So. He has not aged well either. Not a class act although I will give him this- he's a survivor- but just the opposite of someone comfortable in their own skin. By the way, Calvin started in on plastic surgery in his early 30s. He wanted to look like a WASP.

I think he officially divorced Jayne in 1974 but the marriage had been “over” for years and years. It was just a formality to get the divorce at that point.

I’m sure he would have been aggressively chasing boys at that party no matter what. :-)

A few years ago, we were stopped at a light in Meatpacking District, both of us in front seats (I was driving a rental to go out of town or something). Anyway, we’re sitting there and notice this BEAUTIFUL young blond man, with what looked like his VERY old grandfather crossing in front of us. My partner even remarked “oh how cute, he’s taking his grandpa out to brunch.”

As they got right in front of us, the old man looked like the CRYPT KEEPER! He was horrifying to look at.

But then we realized it was Calvin and his boy toy Gruber.

I’m not sure Gruber ever qualified as all caps BEAUTIFUL. lol

I see him around and he looks miserable. The pay back for focusing on money instead of happiness. Sitting in his glass house looking over the river hiring pretty boys to pretend to like him. There are worse lives - but I don’t envy him.

He deserves some damnation because he rode the freedom of gay rights activists who fought and sacrificed for equality without ever doing anything to evidence pride for the millions of gay kids who looked at him and saw that gay men needed to get a beard and live a straight life. He got his but didn’t pay anything forward.

I don’t know R37, I’m not excusing him 100% because it was hypocritical for him to beard with Kelly, but it’s not like he was closeted in Congress and passing anti gay legislation.

He had a huge company with thousands of employees that would have suffered along with him if Calvin Klein, Inc. had gone under as a business because of mid 80s AIDS hysteria and homophobia. I can sort of give him a break considering the circumstances. The gay men working in his design studio were better off employed and with benefits even if it came as a result of a lie to the public about Calvin’s sexuality.

Also he was a very early supporter of GMHC so it’s not like he married Kelly and then completely abandoned the gay community. It’s a bit of a stretch to imply that Calvin was responsible for making the AIDS epidemic worse or that he killed anybody with his actions.

Having said all that, he’s always been a coward when it came to “coming out” and I certainly don’t admire him overall as a person.

Sorry this was meant for R4! ^^^^

R23 I also knew people that worked with Calvin in the design studio and they also had mostly good things to say. He may not be the nicest guy ever, but he’s also no asshole like Barry Diller.

Of course Calvin had Barry Schwartz to play the bad cop and Calvin Klein as a company was known amongst manufacturers and retailers as being extremely aggressive and cutthroat to deal with. But Barry Schwartz was the face on all of that and Calvin himself could always play the good cop role.

It was very much a Yves Saint Laurent/ Pierre Berge type situation except in this case Calvin, even at the height of his partying days, wasn’t nearly the mess that Yves was.

GURRRL PLEASE!

R24 yes but everyone ‘knew’ the score with Barry diller and DVF; papers writing of an ‘amalgamation’ and partnership etc. but that hasn’t stopped them from still insisting that Barry is straight and has chased Diane for decades. Diane ‘in’s’ Barry all the time

In those days, the only person straighter than Calvin Klein was Liberace.

[quote] Did he really kidnap his own daughter?

Are you retarded?

Seriously, Are you fucking retarded? You piece of shit. Get the fuck out of here OP

He was extremely good-looking in his heyday of the 70s and 80s, but he was afraid of aging, and got terrible plastic surgery that aged him even more. He looks awful now.

Years ago i read a biography of him, and he said in his heyday he was always miserable because though there were dozens of beautiful gay model boys around who would have happily been his kept boy for years and years, he was always madly in love instead with different straight male models who would lead him on but wouldn't fuck him.

r44, You GTFO. Rumors don't come from thin air. People talk. CK was a publicity genius. Who and how were the real culprits anyway?

NYT on Marci Klein kidnapping

Typical...mooning after straight men.

It does seem pretty amazing looking back. Who the fuck thought any fashion designer needed to preserve the image of straightness? Who?

I Would never dare speak for youuuu R28. I was talking as a young girl who bought fashion magazines. The partnership didn’t gross me out because she seemed happy and I knew she didn’t have to sleep with the old guy. Unlike your First Lady for example.

Not everyone is a gay man who grew up in America so forgive me for having a different perspective on this.

She seen her opportunities and she took em.

We knew a sister who was cornholed by Calvin in the 1970s. She said Calvin has large sizemeat and 'knows how to use it ".

[quote]Who the fuck thought any fashion designer needed to preserve the image of straightness? Who?

You must be pretty young. There were bad times to be gay in the last few decades. During the height of the AIDS epidemic was merely one.

That’s why rumors of Versace’s HIV status were rampant in the business community. He was the brand and fear of him dying would keep investors nervous.

R53 there are still closet cases in fashion and MAKE UP/ hairdressing even today.....

How about Bruce Webber?! He’s STILL in the closet as well.

Calvin Klein today looks like a FUCKING MONKEY.

Donde es Ernita?

R45, neither myself nor any of my friends in the '70s thought Klein was "extremely good looking". I knew one Wilhelmina model who went out with him a bit- mostly because he thought it would help his career- but even he got turned off- so... For me it was his personality- pretentious and full of put on BS. He was not interested in being who he was and even a young somewhat naive guy like myself could pick it up.

Not sure what age he was here, but there was a brief period where he was a bit sexy. Of course, the sexiness probably evaporated when he opened his mouth. lol

R59-He was/is a big QUEEN.

any idea who Calvin is seeing now?

Kevin Baker... a whore, but a much more presentable one than that Gruber character.

I recall seeing Kalvin being straight two lifetimes ago. He was a she and selling apples in the morning and pussy in the evenings. She was a little dumpy but for a Jewish girl about average. She had scabs on her knees and dried cracked skin at the corners of her mouth. I presumed she prayed out loud a lot. Her ears always looked inflamed and red, so I guess she was sensitive to the grasp of others too. But, always the entrepreneur.

I don't think ANY of Calvin's BOY TOYS are appealing.

Calvin's whores always look like whores.

Calvin Klein is GAY? But he was married a couple of times and had a child!

"He wanted to look like a WASP".

R67 Love you!

How old is his boy toy?

Kevin B is 31. Calvin is 76.

Calvin you scamp!

Trivia: Calvin had and probably still has really, really bad breath.

Even when he was young r73?

Did he ping back then? 😂😂😂 Bitch are we blind?

Even in the 70s, straight women knew he was gay. A friend in high school who sewed made one of his blouses (Very Easy Vogue). They were just grateful for good designs, even if it was all beige and off white.

Why’d he have bad breath?

LOCK ‘ IM UP!

R77 smoking at least a pack a day of cigarettes.

But how does his ASS smell?

The last Slut.

Isn’t Calvin rumored to be HIV+ ?

The last slut, or the latest, r81?

Is it true that CK loves being fisted, and has bought entire male brothels in South American cities to have men put their fists, arms, feet up his ass which is like waving out a porthole?

From DL thread I did not write it just posting it: This fashion designer in known to prefer men who are young enough to be his sons--or his grandsons. But what most people don;t know is that his sexual appetite has grown with age. A spy tells us the "sexpig" designer orders male hookers in "industrial quantities" for physically punishing acts. His obsession: fisting.

how about "never", does "never" work for you?

Is no one going to mention bisexuality? Let's disregard the kid and two ex-wives for a moment. Doesn't Klein himself say he's bisexual, not gay?

Marriage is between a man and a woman. Some of you forget that. I know I will get FF for this. Yes I believe in civil unions, and legal protections, etc. Gay men have been marrying women for centuries.

What a wasted life. He could have been a trailblazer by coming out of his glass closet early on. But he was a greedy coward. Then he 'comes out' (sorta) when he's a gnarly old geezer trying to recapture his youth with gigolos.

And his men's clothes were ugly, too.

Pretty much everything written about Klein indicates he married the first time, because he felt he had to, as a cover, and then the 2nd marriage was purely for marketing purposes. There's no indication he has ever had any sort of successful or heartfelt sexual relationship with a woman.

Being in "fake" relationships with women for image purposes isn't proof of bisexuality. Far from it actually.

He wasted Kelly Rector’s life...didn’t she want children? Why she stick around as long as she did?

[quote]Being in "fake" relationships with women for image purposes isn't proof of bisexuality. Far from it actually.

r89, that's not how that works. No one has to prove their bisexuality. Also, he had a child with his first wife so there was clearly some sexual intercourse going on. I don't claim to know if he's gay or bi, I just find it odd when others claim to KNOW he's gay when he himself says he's bi.

R90 she had a son about 14 years ago with her new partner, a handsome polo player named Nick Manifold.

And she has about $250 million, tons of friends, the Hotel des Artistes apartment in New York, the house on Georgica Pond in East Hampton, and a house in Palm Beach. So no need to shed any tears for Ms. Rector.

Long, but insightful profile if you care to read

Marci Klein’s kidnapper Paule Ransay sketched here with he accomplice brother, claimed that she was Calvin’s lover and that Calvin orchestrated the kidnapping.

If that doesn’t merit a “Sure, Jan”, I don’t know what does. If anything, perhaps Cal and the brother had something going on.

r91 If I chose to have sex with a woman because I would gain something out of it wouldn't make me straight or bisexual.

Fucking someone to get something (money/prestige) is sex for opportunity. You can certainly be sexually attracted to someone in the pursuit of opportunistic sex but it's also possible that you're not the slightest bit attracted.

Calvin Klein's floppo first marriage and blatantly phony 2nd marriage coupled with a long lifetime of exclusively pursuing and fucking a great many men would mostly indicate that Mr. Klein is a Homosexual of the highest standing but whatever rows your bisexual boat.

R90 because of the money, duh!

R91 Elton John and Peter Allen once identified as bisexual as well, and everyone knows they are gay...well except for Liza or so she claims. LOL

Men certainly can be bisexual as I am, and I have other bisexual men as friends; but just because a man who is gay/homosexual has sex with women, has children, or even partners/marries a woman that does not make him bisexual. I know gay men who were married to women and they had children with them, and they said how they did it because they did not want to be gay and that they basically never had sex with their wives, or when they did they would have to think about men the entire time to get hard, stay hard, and finish or pretend to finish. Another friend that is gay but who married a woman and had children with her said how his marriage to his wife was not romantic but it was more akin to being platonic best friends or the way a brother and sister love each other.

R12 - is that Holland Taylor?

[quote]R28 I thought she was greedy and trying for accommodation on the backs of gay men, particularly those suffering from AIDS.

I don’t think greedy is the word. If someone rich wants to dump millions and millions of dollars on your head, that’s fine.

“Greedy” would be sabotaging someone else in line for such a deal, just so you could get the millions for yourself. Or not settling for the millions, and angling for billions.

[quote]R33 His best friend as far as I could tell was another designer, Chester Weinberg .... Chester was nice- Calvin- not so much.

This is from a Chester Weinberg fashion show. If he designed the polka dot top with excruciating collar and bold vest on the right, I am sorry, but I CANNOT endorse that.

“Nice” or not!

I wonder if Terri tried to negotiate a marriage between him and Brooke. It must have crossed her mind, if he was interviewing wives.

No one with a brain believed it.

Everyone knew the score, but there was something very appealing about Kelly Klein and it worked. She looked every bit of a refined, but not overtly glamorous UES woman.

I bet she regretted it many days, but living in the glamour had to have its payoffs.

Somehow Calvin has been given this free pass though - he definitely is not a role model for gays.

Indeed R103. I am surprised he is still alive and did not die from HIV/AIDS as it is very well known CK was into PNP before it was called that or he would have sex on lots of coke, booze, ludes, and get gang fucked and fisted by men in the in baths in NYC/SF/L.A., at 54, the saint disco, at the mineshaft, the rambles of Central Park, in the Meatrack/Pines of Fire Island, in Palm Springs, at male brothels in Amsterdam, Berlin, Rio...