Truly Madly Deeply Bigoted

Or perhaps not. Darren Hayes, frontman for Austrialian MOR shock troops Savage Garden–who organized a gently harmonized campaign of terror against America’s lite FM stations in the high season of Ally McBeal–says he is most emphatically not a racist after the issue was raised following police involvement during an altercation at a Thai restaurant where he was accused of harassing an employee:

“On his official Web site, a statement from Hayes’s solicitor reads: “Darren is unable to comment to any extent as the incident is presently under investigation by the police, with whom he has cooperated fully.

“However he is deeply upset at the allegation which he strenuously denies and anyone who knows Darren will recognise that the particular nature of the allegation is totally abhorrent to him and contrary to everything for which he has stood.”

While I hope these allegations blow over for Mr. Hayes, I can’t help but feel that, between this and the Uncle Kracker arrest, America is losing what little innocence it had left as its turn-of-the-millennium soft-rock heroes are demonized and hounded by the law. Where have you gone, Mark McGrath? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Hayes denies racist attack [Billboard.biz]