Michael Stipe Is 80% Gay

R.E.M. vocalist Michael Stipe says he's 80% gay and definitely prefers men to women, in a new interview with the Observer.

"On a sliding scale of sexuality I'd place myself around 80-20, but I definitely prefer men to women," the 51-year-old musician says. "I had sex with, and enjoyed sex with, women until I met someone that I fell in love with, and who is now my boyfriend. That's the only real news in the last 12 years, but when it's a slow news day I get dragged out of some closet again."

Stipe also reveals that he prefers to identify as "queer" rather than gay.

"I never identified with gay, that's all. I will always honor anyone who had to make different choices, then stand by them, and I would hope that honor would extend to me and my choices as well. I'm talking about how one chooses to define oneself, the community within which one feels comfortable. That's what it's about, really. It's the 21st century," he says. "A lot of younger people have a much more it-is-what-it-is approach to sexuality. The black and white binary approach just does not work. So you find the terms that make you most comfortable."

Stipe currently lives with his partner, Thomas Dozol, an art photographer, in New York.