Obama’s Note to Alleged Former Lover Once Sparked Major Speculation About His Sexual Orientation

When the New York Post published what is claimed to be a 40-plus-year-old letter that Barack Obama wrote to his ex-girlfriend Alex McNear, it caused a big stir about his sexuality. “In regard to homosexuality, I must say that I believe this is an attempt to remove oneself from the present, a refusal perhaps to perpetuate the endless farce of earthly life. You see, I make love to men daily, but in the imagination,” Obama purportedly wrote in November 1982. The former president apparently claimed his “mind is androgynous” but accepted he had “been made a man, and physically in life, I choose to accept that contingency.”

As some reports have noted, McNear is a writer and editor who worked for Playboy and numerous authors, including the famed travel writer Paul Theroux and South African novelist Nadine Gordimer. She married Bob Bozic, a retired Serbian boxer, in 1987 but has since divorced.

David Maraniss wrote about Obama and McNear’s relationship in his biography, “Barack Obama: The Story.” He claimed she “enchanted him when she was editing the literary magazine, ‘Feast’” and that they engaged in a long-distance relationship after graduating from college. Maraniss claimed the couple communicated through “a series of passionate letters.”