Country singer Mindy McCready killed herself yesterday. Roger Clemens, who first met McCready when she was fifteen years-old, has long denied any improper relationship with her, but a detailed report of an affair between the two of them ran in the Daily News back in 2008. McCready confirmed the affair, though she was always vague about how old she was when it began.
Whichever of them you believe, Clemens has released a statement about McCready’s suicide:
Obviously Mindy McCready was a profoundly damaged set of goods and had been for a long time before her death. She was put on a stage performing in bars when she was a teenager. She was a drug addict who made multiple suicide attempts prior to finally succeeding She was in and out of prison. She was the victim of serious domestic abuse who was trying to raise two children, one of which was the son of her primary domestic abuser, the other a newborn. Her once promising career was in shambles and its highlight in recent years had been exploitative reality TV.
In light of that I won’t say that Roger Clemens bears responsibility for what became of this woman for there were obviously many things which contributed to it. But I likewise can’t say that Roger Clemens, who was 28 when he began, well, whatever it is he began with a 15 year-old Mindy McCready, was a positive influence either. How could he have been?
All of it is just terribly sad.
