Friday, November 16, 2012

Rod Stewart Denies Stomach-Pumping Story



Rod Stewart, Rod: The Autobiography (New York: Crown, 2012), pp. 244-5.

[Tony Toon was Stewart's "personal assistant and self-styled publicist."]

Tony went as the result of a poor piece of judgment on his part. During a stay in Hawaii, we found ourselves in an overbooked hotel. Alana and I had Sean and Kimberly in a room with us, and we asked Toon to share an adjoining twin room with Ashley, who was then seven. Toon, of course, couldn't resist pulling some bloke in the bar that evening and taking him back to his room. I fired Toon in the morning.

Toon's revenge was absolutely inspired. He fed the press a story in which, as a consequence of an evening spent orally servicing a gang of sailors in a gay bar in San Diego, I had been required to check into a hospital emergency room to have my stomach pumped. With minor variations (the quantity of the extracted fluid tends to fluctuate: seven pints, three ounces, half a quart; it's a relatively open field), this story has stayed with me ever since. Say what you like about Tony Toon -- and God rest his soul -- but he was good at his job.

For the record, then (and just to put it simply and clearly for posterity's sake): I believe I was in the Hotel Cipriani in Venice on the night of the alleged incident. I have never orally pleasured even a solitary sailor, let alone a ship's worth in one evening. And I have never had my stomach pumped, either of naval-issue semen or of any other kind of semen. Nor of anything else, for that matter.

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Secret Rocker, “Rock Secrets!” Overthrow (New York City), vol. 2, no. 2, May 1979, p. 13.