Singer Don McLean, who is best known for his 1970s song "American Pie," was arrested on Monday Jan. 18 for an alleged domestic violence assault at his home in Camden, Maine, as HNGN previously reported. Not many details on the arrest were released at the time, but the 70-year-old singer has finally spoken out about the incident.
"This last year and especially now have been hard emotional times for my wife, my children and me. What is occurring is the very painful breakdown of an almost 30 year relationship," he wrote on his website on Thursday. "Our hearts are broken and we must carry on. There are no winners or losers but I am not a villain."
At the time of his arrest, McLean was booked into the Knox County Jail on a misdemeanor charge of domestic violence assault, according to CNN. He posted $10,000 bail just a few hours later, but his alleged victim was never named. He does live at the home, where the 911 call was made, with his wife Patrisha and their two children. As a condition of his bail, he was to have no contact, direct or indirect, with the woman he allegedly assaulted.
Since the incident, his wife has revealed that she was the one allegedly abused that night and has cited a pattern of alleged abuse going back three decades. A judge has officially granted her a temporary order of protection from McLean, according to Fox News. The court records show that she filed a handwritten request for this protection.
In the request, she wrote that in the early years of their marriage, his rage was "unfathomable deep and scary" and that his alleged abuse often left her bruised. She also said that she was the one that made the 911 call and that she "feared for her life" when she did so.
The two have been married for 30 years, and she claims that on the night of his arrest, he terrorized her for four hours by squeezing her temples so hard that her head still aches and that this wasn't the first time he's done this, according to TMZ. She also claims that during the assault he said, "I want to strangle you so bad," and that he threatened to kill her.
