Joe.My.God. LGBT News
The BBC reports:
Music producer and reality television star David Gest has died in a London hotel aged 62, a statement from his friend says. Gest, who was 62 years old, passed away at the Four Seasons hotel in Canary Wharf. His friend and former bodyguard Imad Handi confirmed the news in a statement. “It is with great sadness that I can confirm that David Gest has died today,” the statement read.
Gest was best known for being the estranged husband of singer Liza Minnelli and for being a friend of Michael Jackson. He produced 2001’s Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration for television and was nominated for a primetime Emmy. He became well-known in the UK after appearing on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, finishing in sixth place. He later became a judge on talent show Grease Is The Word and in January he appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in the UK. He was married to Minnelli from 2002-2003 and they officially divorced in 2007.
Gest’s divorce from Minnelli inflamed tabloids worldwide.
Their first anniversary party was postponed when Liza was admitted to a clinic to detox. To no-one’s surprise, after 16 months it was announced the union was over. at first, the whispers about what had gone wrong were merely lurid. There were claims that Liza’s elderly pet terrier, Lily, had been put down without her knowledge while she was out shopping.
There were also tales that Gest had dumped her furniture in the street, and stories about her record collection being covered in paint. Old friends complained that Gest constantly changed the couple’s phone numbers in New York to prevent them from getting in touch.
Some suspected, as the marriage ended, that Gest had designs on her collection of Warhol originals. But more recently the fight has got heroically nasty and it has become obvious that Gest wants much, much more than just a few paintings.
Since 2003, he has filed hundreds of pages of accusations against Minnelli in the Supreme Court of Manhattan. He has accused her of fighting him, biting a security aide and sexually harassing a chauffeur. She has been described as running through a hotel suite in London ‘extremely intoxicated… uncontrollable…angry’. He has portrayed her as a sneaky, habitual and violent drunk.
Regarding the furniture dumping, that has become somewhat of an urban legend in Manhattan, which some locals claiming to have scavenged from Minnelli’s prized collection of vintage mid-century molded plastic tables and chairs after they were found on the sidewalk outside her Upper East Side apartment.