Glen Maxey is certainly a character. The Texas activist, who recently claimed GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry is hiding gay skeletons in his closet (among other cadavers), personally commented in our story on why the Huffington Post killed a planned story on his findings.
So we e-mailed him to get more details about his book, Head Figure Head, and find out what the blowback has been from his revelations. “There are lots of balls in the air,” he joked. “None of them the good kind.”
Below, Maxey responds at length to our inquiry, confirming some rumors about the book and denying others. Does he convince you his claims are valid—or raise more doubts? Holler out in the comments section.
Who was the reporter from “a national news outlet” you worked with on this story?
How about we take this to the next level?
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Glen Maxey: Jason Cherkis from Huffington Post. In all cases when I found a source, I asked Jason to interview him first because it was evident nothing said to me would ever be able to be reported until the source said it first hand to the journalist.
Jason is a highly professional journalist. We exchanged hundreds upon hundreds of emails, texts and phone calls. We are good friends personally and professionally now. He really was treated badly in this deal because the journalists above him, all the way to the top at Arianna Huffington, signed off on his submitted article on a Saturday. He told me to expect publication on the next Tuesday. On Monday he told me Arianna had nixed it after she conferred with the people in New York. [Ed’s note: We reached out to Cherkis for comment but did not hear back.]
Have you had any contact with Lin Wood or any of Rick Perry’s legal team?
I have not heard a word from Lin Wood. I am aware of the demand letter sent to Huffington Post after the story outline was sent to the Perry campaign for comment. That exchange was at least a month before. At that point 
Arianna was more determined to publish, I was told. It was weeks later, with a rewritten story, that the approvals were made and then the story was killed.
I have heard not a peep from [Perry’s legal team]. I will not be sued—it’s unwinnable for them because Perry is a public figure and they have to prove I published this with malice. To prove that, they must prove I knew the things in the book to be false and published anyway. I solidly believe, after talking to hundreds of people, that these stories are true. I believe the men who told me to my face in 1990 that Rick Perry was having sexual encounters with them and their friends. I welcome a lawsuit: I’d like to have the opportunity for my lawyers to depose, under oath, Rick Perry and the dozens and dozens of sources I have.
Were there any rumors about Perry, sexual or otherwise, that you weren’t able to include in the book, for whatever reason?
Absolutely there are more stories: Some were not far enough along in the investigation and the comfort level for the sources to talk yet. I have actually found more promising leads from sources since publication.
What do you say to Arianna Huffington’s allegation that there was no substance to allegations—”no there there”?
I’d first say that her writer, his editor, and the chief editor all believed there was sufficient “there there.” And I was told she did, too—until something happened in New York at the corporate offices of AOL. I am not in their loop, so I am sure someday that will be explained.
You say you want the mainstream media to take up the reporting from here. How can we corroborate Joey the Hustler’s story and those of your other sources?
Joey (his pseudonym) met with a lawyer in Austin I asked to be recruited for him, and his Austin lawyer recruited a national lawyer who, to the best of my knowledge, still represents him. I am not convinced that Joey won’t speak when the time is right for him. If you are asking about being involved in further investigation, that would be a conversation off the record. I welcome discussions with legitimate journalists or others who wish to continue this effort, to contact me. This is not a finished effort.
Why did most of the reporting take place via Facebook and text message?
If you find a “friend of a friend of a friend” who hooked up with someone, you have to identify each level of that genealogy. I spent many hours talking to all the Facebook friends of a source or someone who alledgedly had sex with Perry. Sooner or later, I would find someone who had information. That lead would start another round of questions for friends of these men on Facebook. Joey the Hustler only would communicate by text message. In the book, you get the full drama of those messages over the months.
There’s been a lot of controversy about the allegations in this book, but only the say-so of various first- and secondhand sources. Is there a smoking gun somewhere?
Of course there are smoking guns. When a person has been rumored to have sex with Rick Perry, and Glen Maxey finds three or four men who have known that person for the last decades, and all of them independently without knowledge of the statements of the others, tell the same story that the subject of the “hookup” relayed information to his friends about his relationship with Perry, then there’s smoke.
Keep in mind, I know some of these characters personally. One of the men in the book who I believe to have had relationships with Perry, I have known for over 30 years. Another for 20. And a third for a decade. These are not random people in the shadows.
Austin is a small town in some ways: The intersection of the political world and the GLBT world is Glen Maxey’s world. And Rick Perry’s world and my world overlap.
Images by Glen Maxey, Ed Schipul, Fortune Live Media
Pete n SFO
They killed it because there was no substance & it only looked like a witch-hunt.
Every time I read an update, I would get excited to think maybe this time it will be something tangible, but, NOPE.
They risk their whole reputation for some gossipy innuendo? Now, why would they want to do that, really?
Kev C
I haven’t read the book but it seems possible to me. The recent Perry ad, “Strong” struck me as odd. But it makes sense to appear anti-gay to dispel any rumors floating around. Preemptive spin control.
stoopid louie
No fan of Perry, me, but I don’t buy it. If there were people willing to talk, the mainstream media would be all over this, because they love to crucify conservatives, especially ones behaving with such hypocrisy. Mr. Maxey obviously has personal issues with Mr. Perry (perhaps Rick fended off Glen’s advances?), and won’t rest until he’s convinced the world that Perry is gay. And let’s say that, hypothetically, he succeeds . . . who wins? Not us. Who loses? Only Rick Perry and his family. Thanks a lot, Glen, for making the gay community look like sniping schoolchildren on a witch-hunt.
christopher di spirito
The gay rumors surrounding Rick Perry started a decade ago.
They reached a level so loud that Anita Perry, at one point, moved out of the Governors Mansion in Austin. I think and I believe Glen Maxey is very much telling the truth. It isn’t uncommon for powerful political couples to lead very separate lives.
Look at the Clintons. Insiders say Hillary only stayed with Bill because he promised to help get her elected president — the first female president. Something she very much wanted.
I have heard that Anita Perry wanted to be First Lady. This could be the reason she agreed to remain married to Ricky.
Olive Austin
Everyone in (Gay) Austin has either seen Perry in a bar pawing a boy or knows someone who has seen it happen. I can’t PROVE the sky was cloudy here yesterday, but everyone saw it; the only difference is that the news media aren’t afraid of reporting the weather.
Craigers
And this is why I stopped reading the Huff Post the day Arianna sold her soul to AOL. Whether you think this story is true or not, it should be printed. Do you think for one second if this amount of information was researched and reported about Preident Obama that it would not be screamed from every one of our conservative “mainstream” news sources?
stoopid louie
@Olive Austin: You’re certifiably insane if you think the media would be too afraid of Perry to out him—they live for stories like this. And frankly, if there were any substance to it, it would be covered wall-to-wall by the media.
Olive Austin
@7 — There is no locally-owned mainstream media (print or broadcast) in Austin. They all get their marching orders from their right wing owners elsewhere. It’s the same reason 90% of the country didn’t know of Bush Jr’s DWI arrest… or his known cocaine use.
Your name fits.
Spike
Oh please, Rick Perry is about as gay as, err, John Travolta.
If Ricky P was a Democrat running for president, every right wing blog in the country would be publishing the story, and with half the evidence.
The only reason Huffpost is not running the story is because Perry is clearly NOT going to be the nominee. While get caught up in the middle of such a legal mess to uncover yet another hypocritical republican who will never be President. He’s Texas’s problem, let them handle it.
stoopid louie
@Olive Austin: What? You can’t be this dumb. You claim to have knowledge of Austin, but say there’s no mainstream media there. Um, apparantly you’ve never heard of CBS affilliate KEYE, ABC affilliate KVUE, or NBC affilliate KXAN, all of which are mainstream media affiliates that broadcast from . . . wait for it . . . AUSTIN! And honestly, anyone who thinks the mainstream media is anything close to being right-wing is so woefully naive that your opinions are no longer worthy of reading.
Olive Austin
@10 — YOU CAN’T READ! I wrote that there is no LOCALLY-OWNED mainstream media in Austin. And there isn’t. All the TV stations you mention are owned out-of-town corporations, and those corporations are owned by right-wingers. Also the daily newspaper is owned by right-wing Cox Communications and the English radio stations are owned by right wing Clear Channel and Emmis Communications.
Your name fits even more!
Kylew
@Craigers: “Whether you think this story is true or not, it should be printed.”
You can’t onestly believe this Craig? So every innuendo and piece of dirt that anyone cares to make up should be reported, regardless of the fact that it will destroy careers?
Perry is a scumbag, but he is entitled to the same standards of decency that we espouse for everyone else.
His views are so outlandish that the man is perfectly capable of destroying himself, without the need for fantasy lovers. Of course, it would be delicious to drag this filth through the dirt of his own hypocricy IF the story was true, but I’m not at all comfortable with press that print unsubstantiated rumours. We have that in the UK, and the press are a menace that are the enemy of everyone, although many are too stupid to see it as long as they are not directly in the sights…
Robert Morrow
By the way, I should have compared Rick Perry to “Ted Haggard” above.
Rick Perry is not for gays in the military, but he wants to make Liberace Commander-In-Chief.
The reality is Rick Perry has been a rampaging BISEXUAL adulter, on cocaine, for many years.
Google “Robert Morrow Stuffed Suits.com” for more of my articles on Rick Perry’s dirty double life.
Also, my phone number is 512-306-1510 and my email is [email protected]. I accept phone calls pertaining to that gargantuan hypocrite Rick Perry and his dirty double life.
Glen Maxey knows the “gay angle.” I know the “girl angle” on Rick Perry.
Like Glen Maxey, I am a longtime political activist in Austin as well as a 3 time delegate to the Texas state REPUBLICAN convention 2006, 2008, 2010.
Everything Glen Maxey is saying about Perry is true.
Robert Morrow
35 Questions for Reporters to ask Rick Perry:
1) Have you ever used cocaine while governor of Texas?
2) Have you ever had sex with a female prostitute while governor of Texas?
3) Have you ever had sex with a male prostitute while governor of Texas?
4) Have you ever entered a strip club while governor of Texas?
5) Has a stripper ever tried to give you oral sex in the back of a car while governor of Texas? Were you too coked up to sexually perform?
6) Have you ever taken cash bribes while governor of Texas?
7) Have you ever had sex with Geoffrey Conner?
8) Did Anita Perry move of of the Governor’s Mansion back in 2004?
9) Did Anita Perry ever take on divorce attorney Becky Beaver as legal counsel?
10) Have you ever had sex with prostitutes at the Four Seasons Hotel?
11) Have you ever had sex with prostitutes at the Omni Hotel?
12) Have you ever had sex with Lane Denton?
13) Are you a homosexual?
14) Have you ever had sex with an 18 year old female stripper? If so did you sweat profusely? Does cocaine make you sweat a lot?
15) Have you ever gone to homosexual parties in New Orleans?
16) Did you used to go to Dirty Sally’s Apartment gay bar (in Austin) in the 1980’s to meet men?
17) Have you been a homosexual since high school at Paint Creek?
18) Did gay boyfriends ever stay at your apartment when you were Agricultural Commissioner?
19) Has Anita ever complained to you about all your boyfriends?
20) When you travel do you and your entourage bring “young hotties” back to your hotel room for sex? Do you have sex orgies?
21) Do you like young latino men gay prostitutes?
22) Do you have sex with a latino prostitute who poses as a personal trainer?
23) Where you staring at men’s crotches at a gay rights dinner in the year 2000 in Austin, TX? (Honoring the 2 Bettys – Bettie Naylor and Betty DeGeneris)
24) When you were asked at that gay rights dinner why someone should vote for you, did you reply “Because I am here.”?
25) Were you having age 18-19 year old female prostitutes delivered to your room at the Omni in 2006? Did you have sex with them?
26) Are you a “bottom” or a “top” or both?
27) Have you picked up HPV virus in any of your sexual exploits as governor?
28) Did Anita ever tell you at an Houston Astros ballgame that she was feed up with you and all your boyfriends?
29) Have you ever committed adultery while married to Anita? If so, with whom?
30) Have you ever shaken hands with the cook at the old Landing Strip club?
31) Have you ever frequented bars with male exotic dancers?
32) Did you know Movie Gallery was selling a lot of pornography when you invested in it in the 1990’s?
33) Do you and Anita have a Bill and Hillary type political marriage?
34) Is Anita allowed to have sex with other men in your marriage?
35) Has Anita ever caught you having sex with another man?
Robert Morrow
Rick Perry attended a Gay Rights banquet and fundraiser at the Four Seasons in Austin in the year 2000. I have a source – a lesbian who is a reporter by trade. She sat at Rick Perry’s table and watched him – in her words – “cruise” for men out in the hall way. My source said Rick Perry was LITERALLY – and I stress literally – looking at men’s crotches while she observed him in the hallway. He was trying to pick up guys.
Her is her account which she wrote in the 3rd person so I could distribute it:
My source has heard several people tell her the following story, and what she found particularly shocking was how similar (almost verbatim) their stories were.
It is believed this event occurred in 2004.
It was afternoon at the governor’s mansion, and the DPS officer who was the chief of mansion security sat downstairs as he heard Anita Perry enter the mansion’s front door, carrying shopping bags in her hands.
She went up the stairs where the Perry’s bedroom was located, and suddenly the DPS officer heard her screaming and cursing quite dramatically, along with the sounds of some kind of commotion upstairs.
Soon after, the officer observed then-Secretary of State Geoffrey Connor running downstairs in a rush, buttoning his shirt as he ran out the front door and zoomed away in his car.
The security chief then observed an irate Anita Perry, bounding down the stairs as she yelled to her husband that she was leaving because he was “a queer son of a bitch” and more vulgar language along those lines.
She slammed the front door as she left the mansion, then she peeled out of the driveway and left. It is reported she immediately checked into the Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin.
Early into her stay at the Driskill, it also is reported that several high ranking operatives from the Republican National Committee in Washington, DC, flew into Austin with the express purpose of talking Anita Perry out of divorcing Rick Perry and exposing his secret gay life. President-elect Bush did not want a gay Republican scandal tainting his first few months in office, so the GOP mobilized immediately.
It also was reported that the GOP representatives asked Anita Perry to “name her price” in exchange for staying married to Perry and remaining silent about discovering Perry and Connor in bed together.
Allegedly, she received a large sum of cash as well as a position with the Austin-based charity “Texas Association Against Sexual Assault” (TAASA). Though she remains on the TAASA payroll to this day, her name is not mentioned on TAASA’s web site as being on the staff or board of directors.
It’s been reported that her job is a “no-show” position, for which she is paid $60,000 annually.
The State of Texas provides the charity with the bulk of their funding, which means tax payer money is being used as hush money to ensure Anita Perry’s continued silence about the Connor/Perry sex scandal.
My source adds that everyone who has told a version of this story to her also said Anita makes it abundantly clear she cannot stand the sight of Rick Perry, which is why they remain in that taxpayer funded $10,000 a month rental as the mansion is being renovated.
People also speculate about the mansion having caught fire back in 2008, yet three years later it still hasn’t been renovated. Sources say Anita doesn’t want to move back into the mansion with Perry, because at the rental home she has her own wing to herself and never has to see him.
Also, she hates having to attend political functions or do photo ops with Perry, which is why she is never seen smiling in photos. She also is reported to be very icy with people they meet on the campaign trail, and Rick Perry doesn’t dare complain because he’s constantly worried she’ll break their deal and squeal to the media that she’s married to a gay man.
Abbey Cavanaugh
I’m new here, found this from a post at HuffPo. I don’t know if Perry is gay and his marriage is a sham. I do know that Mr. Obama has quite the same stuff in his background…but even more info with real people saying they encountered he and Rahm at the tubs in the 90’s in Chi. Also all the stuff about Rev Wright and his DL club, how he would set up men with women as beards, etc. The murders of the 2 guys from the church naturally sounds like a story the journalists would have been all over. It is a horrible story…these men gunned down right as Mr. O’s prez bid was taking off. One, the choir director for the church…his Mom still tries to get the word out that he was murdered because of his relations with Obama.
I think if the Perry thing is true, it should come out, just as the Obama thing should have 4 years ago. The president is a human being, but they just can’t have a secret life they can be blackmailed about.
It still bothers me that the media didn’t vet Obama. Sad days for this country and now we are paying the price.
B
o. 16 · Abbey Cavanaugh wrote, “I’m new here, …”
Do you mean you are a new troll or a new alias for a resident troll? Your conspiracy theory won’t fly – nobody will believe it without really, really good documentation that you undoubtedly do not have.
ZHammer
@Pete n SFO: Do you work for Rick Perry? Is Rick your sugar daddy? I’m your neighbor can I get a cup of sugar?
Kev C
@Robert Morrow: He’s a politician. I doubt you’ll get a straight answer out of him.
ZHammer
@Robert Morrow: Thank you for this information. I will look up your website.
ZHammer
@Robert Morrow: These are great questions. I wish a reporter or blogger would ask these.
ZHammer
@Abbey Cavanaugh: I don’t believe you. Provide Queerty with evidence.
Robert Morrow
Regarding Barack Obama and Larry Sinclair – those stories are true, too.
Highly respected internet reporter Wayne Madsen went to Chicago and interview the gay community and they said both Obama and Rahm Emmanuel had a gay side. No question in the case of Obama.
Here is a key article on that: http://atlah.org/2010/06/10/wayne-madsen-special-report-obama-and-emanuel-members-of-same-gay-bath-house-club-in-chicago/
Politicians of both parties will lie to you and deceive you as to who they really are.
B
Re No23 (Robert Morrow): A ‘whois’ search shows that atlah.org is owned by someone/something calling itself “Atlah Ministries”. Doesn’t sound like a news source to me. If you check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_David_Manning you’ll find that
Atlah stands for “All The Land Anointed Holy” and the head honcho, James David Manning, had a real dislike of Obama, including in the last election. He apparnetly compared Obama to Hitler. He also allegedly thinks that Africa is “cursed”.
Try a legitimate news source next time.
kawneekwa
I don no, but I bet Marcas backman git all shit gigly when Hansum rick Perry be in da room. Oh yessah, that ol’ fat queen git ta rollin’ dem queenie eyes til they like pop out ta his head!!
Libertarian Larry
@Olive Austin: If you think the media is right-wing, then you obviously have no concept of what the media is. Fox leans right—all other news sources border on being DNC-approved.
@Robert Morrow: I must say, your obsession with all things Ricky is slightly disturbing. Must’ve taken you two hours to write all that crap, and for what purpose? Rick Perry will NOT be the Republican nominee for president, so all this fuss about outing him is obviously for personal reasons. Also, you and I both know that if Obama had any kind of gay past, the Republicans would have been all over it back in ’07, so I doubt there’s much to that story, either.
Olive Austin
@26 — The Big Lie of the last 50 years has been about the alleged “liberal media”, when the fact is that since the early 70’s mainstream media has been consolidating from local ownership of individual broadcasters and newspapers to ownership by huge corporations. Most of those huge corporations are not publicly-traded, but are privately owned by… right wingers, of course.
The thing about the Big Lie is if you tell it consistently and frequently, some weak-minded “true believers”, such as yourself, begin to insist that it’s true. How do they know these “facts”? The huge privately-held corporate media told them so, therefore it must be true.
Step out of the echo chamber if you want to hear something true.
Martin E. Larsen
IF as that guy says there is no truth to the Perry liking to suck dick, then WHY was he doing so well at practicing deep throut on that corn dog at the fair ?? Seems to me he had had a LOT of practice for someone that has not tried it several times
Scott41
I really do not care about Rick Perry’s secret sex life. I do
know I would not have him as a boyfriend. I have never voted
for him. I am proud that Harris County (Houston) did not vote
for him Nov 2010. The Rain God must not like Rick Perry either,
because Houston started getting rain before many other parts
of Texas. You see, the Guv’ner had called on Texans to pray
for rain.
Neither do care whether President Obama has a secret sex life.
I cannot see that Osama bin Ladin’s minions have succeeded in
blackmailing our President. I did observe that he brought up
abolition of dadt in two different State of the Union addresses
and I am rearing to vote for him again.