Posted on April 29th, 2008 12:56 pm
Following a shocking story that broke Monday, country singer Mindy McCready confirmed a long-term affair with embattled baseball star Roger Clemens.
“I cannot refute anything in the story,” a tearful but resolute McCready told the New York Daily News, which reported that they met in a Florida karaoke bar when McCready was a 15-year-old aspiring singer.
Roger Clemens was a 28-year-old ace for the Boston Red Sox and already married to Debbie Clemens, with whom he has four kids, at the time.
“Yes, I have known Roger Clemens for a long time,” McCready said. “He’s a kind and caring man. He’s also a legendary athlete. The central topic in the debate, however, regards his professional life, not his personal life.
“There are legal matters working their way through the system that have nothing to do with me. From my point of view, that is where the focus should remain.”
After the teenage Mindy McCready met Roger Clemens at a Fort Myers, Fla., bar called The Hired Hand, she returned with the Rocket to his hotel room, but there was no sex that night, sources told The Daily News.
It wasn’t until later, after Mindy McCready had moved to Nashville and become a country singing star, that the relationship turned intimate.
Sources say Mindy McCready also received hefty checks courtesy of Roger Clemens - some up to $25,000 - channeled to her through an intermediary.
Such an arrangement raises questions as to why Clemens would go through a third party to give McCready money if they were just friends.
McCready has suffered a long list of legal troubles, which included a 2004 arrest for fraud and jail time last year for violating probation.
Roger Clemens is under FBI investigation for perjury after denying, under oath, accusations by his former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, that the seven-time Cy Young Award winner used performance-enhancing drugs.
