Barry Manilow, a legendary figure in the world of pop music, began his career as a pop vocalist in 1974 with the release of the pop rock ballad “Mandy.” After recording a string of successful singles, including “Copacabana (At the Copa),” “Looks Like We Made It,” “Daybreak,” and a great number of others, the American singer shot to stardom. Manilow has had a brilliant career spanning seven decades, and his name is well-known around the world by people of all ages and generations.
Even though Manilow’s music career was well known, the singer chose to keep many aspects of his personal life, including his marriage and love life, secret. The singer’s second marriage was a part of his life that he kept concealed from the public for a significant portion of his life until 2017, when he finally came out about it. In April of 2017, Manilow explained why he had kept the nature of his romantic partnership a secret for over forty years.
The musician known for his hit song “It’s a Miracle” was previously married to Susan Deixler, his high school sweetheart, for a short period of time prior to being married to his long-term companion who remains a mystery. Express claims that Manilow discussed his first marriage in an interview with them. Manilow said in his autobiography, “Sweet Life: Aventures on the Way to Paradise,” that he and Deixler first crossed paths in Brooklyn, when they were both students at Eastern District High School. In addition to that, he referred to her as “adorable” and said that she had a “smile that lit up the room.”
The musician said that his pals thought he got married too quickly and expressed their opinions with the audience. Despite this, he tied the knot with Deixler in 1964, but they divorced the following year in 1965. In his autobiography, the recipient of a Grammy Award said that despite the fact that Deixler would have been an ideal spouse for him, he was not yet prepared to tie the knot and instead wanted to go on a “wonderful musical adventure.”
After being married to Deixler for a number of years, Manilow went ahead and had a second wedding in private. However, the fact that the singer had secretly wed his long-term manager and partner Garry Kief, with whom he has been personally and professionally engaged for over 40 years, became public knowledge around one year after the wedding took place. Kief took over as president and chief executive officer of Stiletto Entertainment in 1981, in addition to his role as manager of Barry Manilow Productions.
1978 was the year when Manilow’s big song “Copacabana” was released, and the singer quickly realized that he wanted to be with Kief after their first meeting. Manilow said in 2012 that she and Kief did not want to have a family together, despite the fact that Kief already had a daughter from a previous marriage. He explained:
“It just wasn’t doable. I believe that in order to be a good father, I would have had to choose between this terrible environment in which I live and attempting to be a parent. He continued by saying, “The choice never really happened anyway.”
According to Manilow, the experience that came the closest was when he was responsible for the upbringing of dogs, for which he spent “a good eight or nine weeks just with me.” Patricia Butler published a biography of Manilow in 2001, in which she made allusions to the singer’s sexuality. However, only a small number of individuals are aware of the singer’s sexual orientation.
Chris Charlesworth, who was the publisher at the time, said that he had no reservations about releasing the biography since it was common knowledge within the music business “that Manilow was gay.” The book also had several statements from friends and coworkers stating that they were aware of his sexuality long before it was revealed in the book.
In April 2014, Manilow and Kief married the knot in a private wedding ceremony at their 53-acre Palm Springs home. Close friends and family members were in attendance to show their support for the happy couple.
Pop superstar Barry Manilow gave an interview to People in 2017 in which he discussed his love life and sexuality for the very first time. This was the first time he had spoken publicly about these topics since Suzanne Somers broke the story of his secret marriage to Kief. During the one-on-one conversation that took place in Palm Springs, the musician said that he was a very private guy. In addition to that, he discussed the time when he had first come into contact with Kief. He disclosed that:
“I had a feeling that this was the end. I count myself among the fortunate ones. I had a hard time making friends prior to then.” In addition to this, he said, “He’s the smartest person I’ve ever met in my life, and he’s also a great guy.”
After being in a romantic relationship with Kief for 39 years, Manilow explained why he had concealed his sexual orientation all these time. Even when he was seeing Kief, he continued to date Linda Allen in order to deflect attention away from the woman who was really his girlfriend. The musician said that he has never been comfortable discussing his relationship with others or coming out in public about his sexual orientation. In 2015, it came to light that the famous musician was homosexual; at the time, he described his sexual orientation as “a blessing and a curse.”
He went on to explain that the reason he had remained silent was because he cared about his followers and “most of all, I want them to be proud of me as a human being.” Later, he elaborated on the following for People:
“I was afraid that if they found out I was homosexual, it would break their hearts. Fortunately, I never did anything wrong, and when my family and friends found out that Garry and I were dating, they expressed a lot of joy. The response was such a lovely thing to see.”
Kief already had a daughter from a previous marriage, so he and Manilow decided to get married and raise their daughter together.