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Dear everyone getting all excited about the “Michael Stipe comes out” story: Um, this is news? Sure, he apparently told Spin that he’d “just never felt strongly enough about a particular relationship to say, ‘Yeah, he’s my boyfriend, that is what it is,'” but that claim would seem to be at least somewhat contradicted by this 2001 quote from Time: “Stipe says he’s ‘phenomenally overworked’ but happy. He says he’s been ‘in a relationship with an amazing man’ for about three years (he says his partner isn’t a celebrity). In the past Stipe avoided questions about his sexuality, but he’s now more comfortable discussing it. ‘I was being made to be a coward about it,’ he says, ‘rather than someone who felt like it really was a very private thing.’ He now readily describes himself as a ‘queer artist.’ ” I know, Lexis/Nexis is expensive, but you’d think that semi-real news organizations would at least spend some money on, like, actual research! [Us / Photo: AP]