Evangelist's gay escort signs for explicit tell-all
BY STEVE ROTHAUS
Gay ex-escort Mike Jones has signed to write a sexually explicit memoir
about his relationship with fallen evangelist Ted Haggard.
''It's going to review my encounters with Ted and other people who are
similar,'' Jones told The Miami Herald today from New York.
''It's not a book about bashing Ted at all. It's humanizing him as a
person with feelings and emotions and desires,'' Jones said. ``I'm
going to be explicit as far as what happened in our encounters, but not
to rip him apart or be mean to him. He's a man who has faults like all
of us.''
Jones, 49, won't say how much the book deal is worth.
Just before the November election, the muscular massage therapist went
public and told the world that he had a three-year relationship with
Haggard -- married president of the 30-million member National
Association of Evangelicals, a confidante of President Bush and a
leader in the anti-gay political movement.
Haggard, 50, paid $200 cash per session, ''plus tips,'' said Jones, who
said he also helped Haggard buy methamphetamine.
At first, Haggard denied knowing Jones. Within days of the scandal
breaking on Nov. 2, Haggard amended his story, saying that he had paid
Jones only for a massage and that he did buy meth -- but that he had
thrown it away, unused. Haggard soon resigned from all church
leadership positions and publicly called himself ``a deceiver and a
liar.''
Seven Stories Press plans to publish the still-untitled book in June.
''It was Mike's courage and strength of conscience that ultimately led
him to come forward about the hypocrisy of Haggard's life,'' publisher
Dan Simon said in a news release. ``We're proud to be publishing this
important story from an articulate and brave man.''
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16240486.htm
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