Bill de Blasio, New York’s First Polyamorous Former Mayor?

Ladies, is it a red flag if he gave a whole interview to TheNew York Times to say, “I’m still with my wife, but she’s okay with this?” Ladies, is it a red flag if he was the may-or but now he’s at Doris asking, May-I buy you a drink? Ladies, is it a red flag if he keeps on insisting Mayor Adams isn’t the only nightlife mayor? 

Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio sat down with his wife, Chirlane McCray, and The New York Times Wednesdayto declare themselves separated. In a lengthy conversation, the couple covered a lot of ground: No, they aren’t divorcing just yet; yes, they can both see other people and are eager to do so; yes, they can joke about de Blasio’s disastrous presidential ambitions; yes, McCray having been an out lesbian and written an article titled “I Am a Lesbian” prior to their marriage sat quietly at the back of his mind while they were together.

This couple, one of the best known in the city thanks to McCray’s position at the front and center of De Blasio’s campaigns and mayoral tenure from 2014 to 2021, also did something that their fellow New Yorkers have been doing for a long, long time: They discussed what it would look like for them to be together while apart. The pair established some ground rules for their brave new world, or in De Blasio’s words, “What’s cool, and what’s not cool, and whatever else.” 

“One of the things we’re saying to the world is we don’t need to possess each other,” he said. 

“Labels put people in boxes, and those boxes are shaped like coffins,” De Blasio added, quoting his wife, and, “I never want to be stuck,” and “avoid attachments.”

So it sounds like any labels, including “polyamorous,” would not be welcome to these two. And yet, if the shoe fits and walks like a duck, etc. Meanwhile, Brooklynites, gird thyselves for a single-ish de Blasio out on the town. He said he won’t be doing the apps, so where will he be looking for love? Anywhere and everywhere and wherever he can, just like the rest of us in our short, sputtering time on earth. 

There he’ll be at the Ninth Street YMCA by the elliptical, looking for love. There he’ll be in the baking aisle at Whole Foods, looking for shortening and also love. There he’ll be, strolling the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, on the ferry from Wall Street to Bay Ridge, observing the ducks in Prospect Park, and he’ll be looking for love. He’s single, the paper of record reports. Bill de Blasio is single.