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Morrissey autobiography: Singer had first relationship at 35 with male photographer

The Smiths frontman's first relationship was with photographer Jake Walters

Daisy Wyatt
Friday 18 October 2013 11:57 BST
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Morrissey's autobiography, published by Penguin Classics, is not your average celebrity memoir
Morrissey's autobiography, published by Penguin Classics, is not your average celebrity memoir (Getty Images)

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Morrissey has revealed in his new autobiography that he did not have a relationship until the age of 35.

The Smiths frontman, who is normally protective of his private life, said he began a relationship with photographer Jake Walters in 1994.

In his memoir, entitled Autobiography, Morrissey described how Walters followed him back to his house after meeting him at a restaurant and “steps inside and stays for two years”.

He said: “For the first time in my life the eternal ‘I’ became ‘we’, as finally I could get on with someone.”

Morrissey does not specify whether the two were lovers, but talks of sharing hotel suites and being photographed with his head “resting on Jake’s exposed belly”.

The relationship ended in true Morrissey style after Alan Bennett visited the couple for tea and said: “Now, now. What’s going on? Something’s happened, hasn’t it? You haven’t spoken a word to each other since I arrived.”

Morrissey also reveals he discussed having a child- what he describes as “producing a mewling miniature monster”- with his girlfriend Tina Dehaghani, who he met two years after his relationship with Walters.

Morrissey's Autobiography
Morrissey's Autobiography

His other revelations include being inappropriately treated by teachers at Stretford Grammar School in Manchester, where each day was “Kafka-esque in its nightmare”.

One PE teacher, he recounted, “stands and stares and stands and stares” at naked boys in the shower, while he remembers another for the way he rubbed anti-inflammatory cream into the young Morrissey’s wrists.

He wrote: “At 14, I understand the meaning of the unnecessarily slow and sensual strokes, with eyes fixed to mine.”

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