Gavin Rossdale is a boring soccer dad now…but back in the day he was a wild child. Last year we found out he had a secret teenage lovechild and this week InTouch broke the story that he had a boyfriend in his early London club days.

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Back in the ’80s, he was a wild child who wore black lipstick and partied until all hours at London’s underground clubs. And the most important relationship of his life may have been with another androgynous, hard-partying man. As In Touch has learned, Gavin had a long-standing secret love affair with Marilyn — a male rocker who looked remarkably like Gwen. “He was the love of my life,” Marilyn tells In Touch.

Though Boy George broke the news of Gavin, 43, and Marilyn’s tumultuous romance in his 1995 book, Take It Like a Man, Gavin denied it, stating, “I wasn’t dating Marilyn. We were, and still are, good friends.” At the time, Marilyn denied the affair, as well. But today he says he did it only because Gavin asked him to. “He was just becoming successful in America,” Marilyn explains. “I agreed to lie against every grain of my being.” Now, Marilyn wants to set the record straight. In an exclusive interview with In Touch, the British pop icon details the love affair that spanned the early ’80s. “We were together five years,” Marilyn says. “But it felt like 40.” (Gavin’s rep denies the story.)

This just might be true. Check out these pics of Gav and Marilyn in the 80′s. Wouldn’t you swear Gavin was a girl? He was doing nothing to disquise how feminine he looked.

marilyn gavin rossdale