Personal Life
On August 8, 2008, Aiken announced, on his personal blog, the birth of his son in North Carolina: "My dear friend, Jaymes, and I are so excited to announce the birth of Parker Foster Aiken." The child's mother, Jaymes Foster, is the sister of record producer David Foster and the executive producer of Aiken's last three albums on the RCA label. "The little man is healthy, happy, and as loud as his daddy," Aiken wrote. "Mama Jaymes is doing quite well also." Aiken said in his book, Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life, that "It's a Southern tradition to be given your first name from your grandmama's maiden name." Aiken's middle name came from his paternal grandmother's maiden name; using instead the married surnames of their mothers, he and Foster followed that tradition in choosing their son's name.
After several years of public speculation, Aiken disclosed that he is gay in a September 2008 interview with People magazine. In April 2009, Aiken was honored by the Family Equality Council advocacy group at its annual benefit dinner in New York City.
On November 18, 2010, Aiken went to Washington, D.C. on behalf of GLSEN at a Capitol Hill briefing talking about anti-gay bullying.
Aiken has talked about having had a little liposuction under his chin while undergoing treatment for temporomandibular joint disorder.
Read more about this topic: Clay Aiken
Famous quotes related to personal life:
“The dialectic between change and continuity is a painful but deeply instructive one, in personal life as in the life of a people. To ‘see the light’ too often has meant rejecting the treasures found in darkness.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)