Was She Or Wasn't She

The big shock of an announcement came in December of 2009. Right there on Van Morrison's website was a news flash about the birth of a son, except the reclusive singer's wife was never pregnant.

The mother was someone else, and the PR spin was begun.

Van and Gigi in happier times

The woman claiming to be the mother of the newest Morrison was a total stranger, Mr. Morrison's PR man said. John Saunders gave a radio interview to get the message out. The birth notice was a hoax. Mr. Saunders was hired to deny the claim, and he went about his job as instructed.

Well, right, the mother wasn't a total stranger. She might have been a bit strange, but she was the tour manager for Van Morrison's American performances so they did have some contact. Purely professional, however.

The rumour mill started churning out stories, so many stories that Mr. Morrison sought a court injunction to keep the whole thing quiet.

At some point, after issuing a string of denials about the paternity issue, Mr. Saunders turned around and sued his client for such unpleasant issues as breach of contract and misrepresentation.

That misrepresentation would be Van Morrison's insistence that he didn't know Ms. Lee but then a photograph turned up that showed them together and they worked together so, there you have it. You can't hold things back from your PR man is he's to do his job properly, with the facts in hand and a well-crafted spin in place to cover all the potential pitfalls.

To this day, Van Morrison denies that he was the father. Tragically, both mother and baby died shortly after the birth, and it would seem that the point of arguing is lost. Both are gone. Does it really matter? There won't be any future issues in regard to inheritance or estates, which is the main reason why paternity would have to be established.

And it could have been established with a simple DNA test, but matters never progressed that far.

We will never know if Van Morrison had an affair with his tour manager. The lawsuit has been quietly settled out of court, with the participants keeping silent on what if any damages were agreed. The earlier dispute, that Mr. Saunders had not acted on Mr. Morrison's direction when he told the world that the singer wasn't the father, has been officially concluded with a note that Mr. Morrison had indeed instructed Mr. Saunders to go forth and spin away.

The child dead after falling into a diabetic coma. The mother dead of throat cancer. The unhappy incident is dead as well, except perhaps for a little spark of life in the Morrison household, where Van Morrison had some explaining to do to his wife. But that is an entirely private matter between husband and wife.