Michael Stipe profile in Esquire a fake, sort of

The recent Esquire profile of REM singer Michael Stipe, who recently acknowledged his long-term relationship with another man, was partially fabricated, admits writer Tom Junod. The piece described such alleged activities as Stipe’s eating all the sugar in a dispenser at a restaurant then licking the top as well as sucking pennies and then sticking them on his eyelids. All false, as it turns out, but Junod is not apologizing, as he states clearly in the article: “It’s almost as if you have to make half the story up. So that is what we did. But only half.” A Web site address is given at the end of the article directing readers who are interested to an annotated version that delineates which parts of the profile are in fact true. Junod also wrote the notorious “exposé” of Kevin Spacey in the October 1997 issue of Esquire.