Quote:McCray’s interview with Essence magazine comes 34 years after she penned a 1979 essay for the publication about coming out as a gay woman. She said she fell in love with a man 'by putting aside the assumptions I had about the form and package my love would come in.'

Bill de Blasio’s wife opened up about falling in love with a man after years of identifying as a lesbian and their life as a “very conventional, unconventional couple” in a candid interview released Thursday.

Chirlane McCray, 58, said her relationship with de Blasio was made possible “by putting aside the assumptions I had about the form and package my love would come in.”

The interview, with Essence magazine, comes 34 years after McCray penned a groundbreaking 1979 essay for Essence entitled, “I Am a Lesbian,” about coming out as a gay black woman.

A dozen years later, in 1991, McCray met de Blasio while she worked for the New York Commission on Human Rights and he was an aide to then-Mayor David Dinkins.

“I was wearing West African-inspired clothing and a nose ring, and Bill says he had the love-at-first-sight experience,” she said. “I did note what a good-looking guy he was and that he was funny and smart and made other people laugh.”

McCray said the fact that he was a man, and white, was not her biggest concern.

“All I could think about was, ‘He's six years younger than me!’” she said.

Asked if it was “strange being with a man,” given her history with women, McCray said:

“I came out at 17. I hadn’t really dated any men. I thought, ‘Whoa, what is this?’ But I also didn’t think, ‘Oh, now I’m attracted to men.’ I was attracted to Bill. He felt like the perfect person for me. For two people who look so different, we have a lot in common. We are a very conventional, unconventional couple.”

De Blasio was aware of her history, but her essay in Essence “shook him up,” she said.

“Other people told him in the beginning. Then at some point I gave him the article and said, “Look, this is who I am and you should read this.” It shook him up. But he didn’t show it. He was cool about it.”

The couple has now been married for 19 years and has two teenage children.

McCray’s past, while never a secret, was not discussed during de Blasio’s successful 2009 campaign for public advocate.

It only became widely known last December when news organizations wrote about her 1979 essay.

McCray and de Blasio then did a whirlwind of television interviews to talk about her past and their relationship. McCray and the couple’s children have been prominent, at times, in his campaign.

Her past serves as a counterpoint, of sorts, to the historic nature of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s rival Democratic candidacy.

Quinn, who is married to a woman, Kim Catullo, would be city’s the first openly gay mayor if elected.

In the Essence interview, McCray said she was unconcerned when her sexual past was publicized.

McCray, who said she doesn’t like labels, declined to call herself bisexual, but suggested that she can still be attracted to women. “I’m married, I’m monogamous, but I’m not dead and Bill isn’t either,” she told the magazine with a laugh.

“I know my husband loves me fiercely and passionately. I know he supports me and will always stand up for me.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election...-1.1339398

What a circus. She looks like the witch doctor played by Whoopie Goldberg in Ghost.

They have some good looking kids. This guy could be Obama's son, if he had one.

As a great thinker once said "Ya can'ts makes dis stuff ups."