Movie director
Joel Schumacher is well known for his work in Hollywood, from filming 80s mega-hits
St. Elmo's Fire and
The Lost Boys to creating the much maligned
Batman & Robin. But during a recent
interview with Vulture, the 79-year-old's sexual history is what really caught people's attention.
The interviewer didn't hold back, asking Schumacher how many men he thinks he's been with in his lifetime.
“It would be in the double-digit thousands, but that is not unusual,” Schumacher said, estimating the number to be somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000. “It’s not [amazing] for a gay male, because it’s available.
A large number of those encounters took place on Fire Island from 1965 to 1970, where he said he was fueled by meth, making him “horny all the time.”
“You’re just starving for sex all the time,” Schumacher explained. “Every drug, in my mind, was a pathway to sex. So was alcohol. There was an adventure going on, and sex would be the cherry on that sundae. Now, a lot of gay people are getting married, they’re adopting, or they’re having children. There wasn’t any of that when I was young. If you went into a gay bar and there were 200 men in there, and you said, ‘Okay, who wants to have a little house with a white picket fence, and a dog, and a child, raise your hands,’ or ‘Who wants to get laid tonight?’ The concept of a lovely suburban life or raising children was not a high concept.”
Of course, having been with so many men, he must have had a dalliance or two with someone famous.
"I’ve had sex with famous people, and I’ve had sex with married people, and they go to the grave," he said. "I’ve never kissed and told about anybody who gives me the favor of sharing a bed with me."
The real question: where did he find the energy to direct any movies?
You can read the full interview
here.