Jann Wenner told Marc Maron that the paternity of his children with his husband Matt Nye is “none of your business.”
The magazine magnate and Rolling Stone co-founder sat down with Maron for the latest episode of his WTF podcast where he discussed his memoir, as well as his life family and career.
The 76-year-old businessman has three grown sons with his ex-wife Jane Schindelheim and he shares three teenagers with his partner Nye, who were conceived via surrogate.
“Now in terms of your personal life, you made a tremendous shift midway through,” Maron said to Wenner, referring to his decision to come out later in life and leave his wife for a man in 1995 after 26 years of marriage.
“I mean, I wasn’t, you know, desperate to come out the closet or in agony or, these things you read about, and I just knew I was gay or bisexual, whatever you call it, for years—you’re born that way,” Wenner said. “I didn’t find it really an impediment to my life.”
“I was married. I had three kids and we had wonderful homes and then you know, just exactly wonderful life,” he continued. “But then I fell in love with somebody else. And you know, and it made complete sense and different in that way. And then you got this other kind of the sexual component which became different and more fulfilling in its way and went on, had three more kids.”
Wenner’s sons with Schindelheim are Alexander Jann, Theodore “Theo” Simon, and Edward Augustus, known as Gus, and his kids with Nye are Noah and twins Jude and India Rose.
Wenner told Maron that his three children with Nye were conceived through surrogacy but shut down the host’s question about “whose sperm was used.”
“That’s none of your business,” he answered playfully.
Maron joked: “I can just look at the kids and guess.” To which Wenner laughed: “Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s you’re going to have to do.”
Wenner told Maron that he lives in Montauk, Long Island, and his ex-wife lives nearby.
“We live close by the two families, the kids are all intermingled and being raised together,” he said. “Total fun. So everybody gets along.”
Wenner said that the situation while “tough” at first, turned out well for all involved.
“Everybody gets along, it’s nice,” he said. “It turned out just great. I’m very lucky. It was a tough thing to do. It was very tough on my wife. And it was hard on the older kids for a while. They adapt quickly. But you know, it was the right thing for everybody.”
Newsweek has contacted Maron for further comment.
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