My dad loved the song “American Pie.”
He knew every word, and he would sing along to it while simultaneously explaining all the historical references in the pauses between lyrics. So driving in the car with him sounded a lot like, “ ‘I met a girl who sang the blues’ – that was Janis Joplin, Victoria, you know who she is, right? – ‘and I asked her for some happy news … ’ ”
When I told my dad back in 2016 that Don McLean had been arrested for domestic violence, his lips disappeared into his beard, which bristled with anger like a dog raising its hackles. He spat: “He never got over being a one-hit wonder.” And that was it. To my dad, there was no lower life form on earth than a man who would raise his hand to a woman or a child. Which I guess sets him apart from the Biden administration.
I get that politics is a dirty business, but it’s not like we’re risking U.N. sanctions or an international incident if the guy behind “American Pie” doesn’t get an invite to the White House for a state dinner.
McLean wasn’t raising funds for survivors or making a speech about how abusers can move forward, heal and end the cycle of violence. No, he was merely attending a state dinner.
This newspaper’s editorial board last week criticized McLean’s invitation and the terrible message it sent. I agree with that.
So I want to talk a little about what I saw in the picture of him at the state dinner. He had a lady on his arm; I thought he must have brought his daughter or granddaughter with him as a PR move.
Don McLean and Paris Dunn arrive at the state dinner in Washington on May 23. Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press
Not the case.
Apparently McLean’s girlfriend is 48 years his junior. When I was in high school and college and saw older guys dating girls my age, I figured it must be a looks thing, or maybe a virginity thing. I’m 31 now and can say with great confidence that I’m a lot better-looking than when I was 18. But I’m also a lot more independent, experienced and – for lack of a better word – powerful.
There’s nothing like the confidence of being on a date and knowing that if it goes south, I can get into my own car and drive back to my own house that I’ve bought with my own money from my big-girl job. All the money and self-actualization in the world can’t prevent someone from being a victim of abuse, particularly abuse by an intimate partner, which uses the most basic and powerful emotion in the human experience (love) as a twisted weapon of entrapment. But having resources and a network makes it a lot easier to escape that abuse alive.
I’m not against age gaps in relationships. I think, in many cases, they can be quite healthy; my girlfriend is six years older than I am, and we are doing pretty well as a pair. But there’s a huge power gap between a 78-year-old with multiple decades of career and life experience behind him and a 30-year-old model, who started dating McLean sometime in 2018, when she would have been 24.
Being young and beautiful certainly can carry its own kind of power, but it’s not the kind of power that can hire lawyers to file suits against partners or ex-partners in a court of law – something McLean also did recently, suing his ex-wife for allegedly violating their divorce settlement by talking about him in public.
In 2021, his daughter Jackie alleged mental and emotional abuse by her father in an interview with Rolling Stone. Reached for comment, McLean told Rolling Stone: “I don’t understand what mental and emotional abuse is” and “I would snap sometimes; I did have a temper.”
Who knows. Maybe McLean’s had an Ebenezer Scrooge-like change of heart and is a wonderful, gentle man these days – although calling his ex-wife “a #MeToo hustler” raises doubts about his rehabilitation.
But his history of abuse, combined with him dating someone on such a different power level than him? That is, as the kids these day, “sus,” short for “suspicious.” He seems to me like a man who has a very old-fashioned view of women and their place. Does he want an equal partner? Or a subservient woman? There are too many men who think like that in the world. We don’t need to hold them up as role models.
I am comforted to know that here, in our unglamorous corner of the world, his legacy is set. Mainers have long memories.
Victoria Hugo-Vidal is a Maine millennial. She can be contacted at:
themainemillennial@gmail.com
Twitter: @mainemillennial
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