BREAKING NEWS: Michael Stipe, frontman of REM, has admitted to being gay. Also in the news, Ronald Reagan has been elected President, and women have just been given the right to vote.

In all seriousness, though, I am really reeling from this. I mean, doesn’t Stipe depict the epitome of the strapping lumberjack-type?

Perhaps it’s because I’m from Georgia, and we all have or know someone who has hung out at his house or seen him numerous times around and know him in some way shape or form. Didn’t he, after all, have some sort of love affairs with River Phoenix and Morrissey? And didn’t he just mention not too long ago that he had a crush on Mike Huckabee? I just have a hard time believing that anyone finds this shocking at all.

Nonetheless, Spin Magazine thought it was important enough to make something out of it.

“It was super complicated for me in the ’80s,” Stipe told Spin. “I was totally open with the band and my family and my friends and certainly the people I was sleeping with. I thought it was pretty obvious.”

Obvious: the understatement of the century.

I’m not knocking Stipe or anything, and I don’t see how this affects REM’s music in any way; I just thought this story was one of those “are you kidding me?” moments when I read it. April Fool’s Day isn’t that far off, after all.

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