Kelly's Engaged! Kelly Osbourne is reportedly tying the knot with her vegan chef beau. MORE >> 
 
 is firing back at Kelly Clarkson only hours after the American Idol disputed claims about their testy relationship, as written about in Davis’ new memoir, The Soundtrack of My Life. 
 
 “As anyone who has read The Soundtrack of My Life knows, I think Kelly Clarkson is a tremendous vocal talent and performer,” Davis wrote Tuesday night on his Twitter. “In the book, I provide an in-depth look at our years together during which we shared major multi-platinum success, as well as a few creative differences.” 
 
 “I am truly very sorry that she has decided to take issue with what I know to be an accurate depiction of our time together,” he continues. “Before the book was published, I had every fact checked with five independent individuals who were present on a daily basis throughout it all. The chapter as it is written was thoroughly verified by each and every one of them. I stand by the chapter as written in my book. At the same time I wish, and will always wish, Kelly’s talent and her career to soar to ever new heights.” 
 
 Earlier Tuesday, Clarkson — whose fallout with Davis hit the press in 2007 upon the release of her then-new CD, My December, fired off a brutal open letter to fans on her WhoSay page , in which she claimed that Davis’ book contained “memory lapses and misinformation.” 
 
 “Growing up is awesome because you learn you don’t have to cower to anyone – even Clive Davis,” she wrote. 
 
 To read the letter in full, click here. ||||| Speed Read 
 
 In a new memoir, the 80-year-old music exec reveals that he’s bisexual. Plus, personal letters to Whitney Houston, trouble with Kelly Clarkson, a close brush with Janis Joplin, and more. 
 
 Legendary music executive Clive Davis—most famous for being the brains behind the success of Whitney Houston—has worked with everyone from Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan to Kelly Clarkson and Alicia Keys. Yet the buzziest part of his new memoir may be the 80-year-old’s disclosure that he is bisexual. From candid talk about his sexual adventures to spats with Bob Dylan and a close encounter with Janis Joplin, more of the juiciest bits from The Soundtrack of My Life. 
 
 1. Yep, He’s Bisexual 
 
 After separating from his wife in the ‘80s, Davis reveals, he was in three simultaneous relationships—two of which were with women, and one with a man. “I enjoyed my time with all of them and honestly felt I had no strong sexual preference,” Davis writes. “Naturally, all of this preoccupied me.” It wasn’t until 1990 that Davis entered a monogamous relationship once again, with a man. That relationship lasted until 2004; for the last seven years, Davis says, he’s been in a “strong monogamous relationship” with a man. 
 
 2. Bob Dylan Accused Him of Censorship 
 
 When Davis worked as a lawyer for Columbia Records, he consulted with Bob Dylan on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. According to Davis, Dylan wanted to include the satirical song “Talking John Birch Society Blues,” which mocked the then-influential right-wing group. When Davis decided certain lines would be considered libelous in court, he had to personally tell Dylan that Columbia would not put the track on the record. Of course, Dylan was not pleased. “‘What is this?’” Davis remembers Dylan saying. “‘What do you mean I can’t come out with this song? You can’t edit or censor me!’” The song never made it onto the famed album, but was later released as part of the Bootleg Series Volumes. 
 
 3. He Cried Over Whitney Houston 
 
 Davis is largely credited with discovering Whitney Houston and sending her on her way to massive stardom, and he devotes a chapter to his late protégée—the one that was “hardest to write.” In it, Davis reprints several of the letters he wrote to Houston, including one sent in 2001 after he saw her at a concert looking “skeletal.” “Dear Whitney,” Davis wrote. “When I saw you Friday night at the Michael Jackson concert I gasped. When I got home, I cried. My dear, dear Whitney, the time has come ... I join your mother in pleading with you to face up to the truth now, right now, and there is no more time or postponement. You must think not only of yourself but you must think of those who love you.” 
 
 Davis says never received a response to the letter. 
 
 4. He Turned Down Sex With Janis Joplin 
 
 When Davis saw Joplin perform as part of the band Big Brother at Monterey Pop in 1967, he says it was downright revelatory. “The impact of seeing an artist that raw, earthy and fiery just floored me ... I experienced a personal epiphany as well. This has got to be my moment, I thought. I’ve got to sign this band.” When he finally was about to sign the band a year later, Joplin’s manager came to him with an unusual offer. “She’s talked about meeting you, and she thinks it only fitting and proper that she ball you to cement the deal,” Davis recalls her manager saying. “That would be her way of showing this is a more meaningful relationship—not in lieu of signing, but in addition a way to make the signing different from what it normally would be in the business world.” 
 
 Davis politely declined, the band signed anyway, and the rest is history. 
 
 5. John Lennon Didn’t Listen to the Radio 
 
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 Davis recalls running into John Lennon and Yoko Ono at a coffee shop on Columbus & 72nd St. in 1973, right before they moved into the Dakota. The trio got into a conversation about music and Davis asked Lennon if he liked to stay current by listening to the radio. He got a shocking answer. 
 
 “He said ‘I don’t listen to the radio at all.’ I was flabbergasted. ‘Not at all?’ I said, ‘When you’re not recording you have no interest in knowing what else is happening?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘I haven’t listened to any new music at all ... Clive let me ask you a question. Do you think Picasso went to the galleries to see what was being painted before he put brush to canvas?’” 
 
 Only Lennon could compare himself to Picasso and not be totally out of his mind. 
 
 6. He Had Creative Differences With Kelly Clarkson 
 
 The American Idol winner is "obviously very talented," Davis writes in a portion of the book that has already earned a rebuttal, but the two didn’t always agree. Davis claims that Clarkson "hated" what would become her hit tracks “Since You Been Gone” and “Behind These Hazel Eyes” when she first heard them, and wanted both songs off her album. 
 
 "It was a very tough conversation, and it didn't get any easier when Kelly burst into hysterical sobbing. We all just sat there and she cried for a several minutes. No one knew what to say." On Tuesday, Clarkson responded to Davis's characterization, saying “his stories and songs are mixed up. I did want more guitars added to the original demo and Clive did not. Max, Luke and I still fought for the bigger sound and we prevailed and I couldn’t be more proud of the life of that song.” Clarkson added, “Growing up is awesome because you learn you don’t have to cower to anyone—even Clive Davis.” 
 
 7. But He and Aretha Are Pals 
 
 Clarkson, Dylan, and Paul Simon may have been difficult to work with sometimes, but Davis’s relationship with the Queen of Soul reads like a virtual slumber party. ||||| Music mogul's new book recounts a life spent discovering and revitalizing storied careers. 
 
 Recording industry legend Clive Davis, in his New York City home, has released a new memoir. (Photo: Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY) Story Highlights Remembering Whitney Houston, Davis says, "It makes you feel so helpless" 
 
 Davis recalls working with icons ranging from Janis Joplin to Billy Joel 
 
 The book matter-of-factly shares a revelation about the music mogul's personal life 
 
 NEW YORK — In Clive Davis' handsomely appointed penthouse apartment on Park Avenue, there's a long windowsill adorned with photos of the music mogul's family and friends, among the latter such familiar faces as Rod Stewart, Barry Manilow, Dionne Warwick and the late Whitney Houston. 
 
 Davis, who will turn 81 in April, has "a lot more" pictures at his weekend home in suburban Pound Ridge, he says, and it's surely not an empty boast. In his more than five decades in the business — first as a lawyer at Columbia Records, then as chief of that fabled company and founder of his own two labels, Arista and J — Davis has helped discover, nurture and revitalize the careers of some of the biggest names in rock, pop, R&B and jazz. 
 
 In his new memoir, The Soundtrack of My Life (Simon & Schuster), co-written with Rolling Stone contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis, Davis takes readers from his Brooklyn, N.Y., boyhood through his ascent to one of the most high-profile and creatively engaged executives in his field — and also includes, in the final chapter, a highly personal revelation. Setbacks are addressed in detail, from his 1973 firing at Columbia in the midst of a legal scandal to his removal from Arista's top position in 1999. (He's now chief creative officer of Sony Music Entertainment.) 
 
 But as Soundtrack makes clear, such reversals did not impede Davis' ability to play key roles in the progress of icons ranging from Janis Joplin to Miles Davis, Billy Joel to Annie Lennox, Patti Smith to Alicia Keys. Not too shabby for a guy who, as he admits early in the book, wasn't actually a fan of rock 'n' roll. "It just wasn't for me, any more than Hula Hoops or coonskin Davy Crockett hats were," he writes. 
 
 Then Davis attended the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967 and had what he describes in conversation as "an epiphany. Watching artists like Joplin perform, I felt that tingle down my spine; I experienced the wonders of a cultural and musical revolution." He grew committed to Joplin and then-fledgling bands such as Santana, Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears — "artists I thought were groundbreaking and cutting-edge. And I found that I had a natural gift" for spotting talent "that I wouldn't have known about otherwise." 
 
 In later decades, of course, Davis would gain even greater renown for his work with pop and R&B divas, none more so than Houston. There's a chapter dedicated to the superstar (who died last year, on the day of Davis' pre-Grammy Awards gala) that begins, "Without question, this is the most difficult chapter for me to write." 
 
 When the subject is raised, Davis laments that Houston "didn't understand the seriousness" of her addiction problems. "She had flashes of understanding. I spent an afternoon with her a few days before she died, and she couldn't have been more vital. She played me music and promised that she would cut out cigarette smoking — I'd been relentless in telling her to do that. She was full of life, and looking back, it makes you feel so helpless." 
 
 DeCurtis, who conducted more than 100 hours of interviews for the book, was impressed by Davis' ability to stay grounded through personal and professional ups and downs. "He's obviously very involved with his artists, but he doesn't ride on their coattails. He very much has his own life, and that's one of the reasons he's lasted so long." 
 
 Davis, who is twice divorced, remains close to his family, which includes three sons, a daughter and six grandchildren, and to friends, with whom he vacations regularly. Soundtrack's aforementioned personal revelation acknowledges "something that my children and close friends have always known, but that I knew I would need to discuss in a biography": He considers himself bisexual. 
 
 "After my second marriage failed, I met a man who was also grounded in music. Having only had loving relationships and sexual intimacy with women, I opened myself up to the possibility that I could have that with a male, and found that I could." 
 
 Davis is currently involved with another man (who isn't in show business), "but I never stopped being attracted to women. Bisexuality is misunderstood; the adage is that you're either straight or gay or lying, but that's not my experience. To call me anything other than bisexual would be inaccurate." 
 
 Professionally, at least, Davis has no plans to settle down anytime soon. Among his future plans are an album of "diva standards" with Aretha Franklin, another legend he has championed in the past, and co-producing a Broadway revival of My Fair Lady. 
 
 "Listen, I love music," Davis says with a smile and a shrug. "So as long as my health is good, I'm going to keep doing this." 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/WIRovz ||||| Clive Davis' new memoir, The Soundtrack of My Life, is full of inside stories from throughout his famed career. But the biggest revelation is a personal one: For the first time, the 80-year-old record executive discusses his "bisexual life." 
 
 Davis, who has been married and divorced twice, has never before publically addressed his sexuality. In a candid five-page section toward the end of the book, due in stores today, he writes that he first had a sexual encounter with a man during "the era of Studio 54." "On this night, after imbibing enough alcohol, I was open to responding to his sexual overtures," writes Davis, who says he had only been with women before. As for that experience, he writes, "Was I nervous? Absolutely. Did the heavens open up? No. But it was satisfying." 
 
 Davis writes that afterward, he went through a period of "soul searching and self-analysis": "I didn't feel as if I had found, or was even searching for, my true self. I had not been at all repressed or confused during either of my marriages." Years later, Davis separated from his second wife and eventually began living what he calls "a bisexual life." In 1990, he entered into a "monogamous relationship" with a male doctor, who is not named in the book. Although that relationship ended in 2004, Davis says he has been in a subsequent relationship with another man ever since. Davis writes that his coming out deeply affected his ties with one of his sons, Mitchell: After what Davis calls "one very trying year," father and son worked out their differences, Davis says. 
 
 The bulk of Davis' book – an overdue sequel to his now out-of-print 1975 memoir Clive: Inside the Record Business – is devoted to his interactions with a wide range of artists over nearly five decades. He recounts his early years with Columbia Records, some of which had been detailed in the previous book. In one particularly memorable scene, Davis attempts to talk Bob Dylan out of naming his new album Nashville Skyline ("It was not in any literal sense a country album"). He also relates how he told Bruce Springsteen's manager at the time, Mike Appel, that 1973's Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., needed a few more radio-friendly songs – which resulted in Springsteen adding "Blinded by the Light" and "Spirit in the Night" to the finished record. 
 
 Aretha Franklin to Reunite With Clive Davis for Next Album 
 
 The Soundtrack of My Life (co-written with Rolling Stone contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis) covers Davis' post-1975 career as founder of Arista and J Records in great detail. Not unexpectedly, Davis devotes an entire chapter to his work with Whitney Houston. He recounts their early collaborations and his trepidations about her acting in The Bodyguard. But he also writes in-depth about the subsequent problems that led to her death. He reprints a letter he wrote to her after seeing an emaciated Houston perform at the 2001 Michael Jackson tribute concert ("When I got home, I cried," he tells her) and reveals a one-on-one intervention with her that he attempted at his Pound Ridge, New York, home. (Houston, he writes, was in "complete denial" about her excesses.) And he recounts the shock of getting that momentous phone call, just before his annual pre-Grammy party, that Houston was dead. 
 
 Davis also goes in-depth on his clash with Kelly Clarkson and her management prior to the release of 2007's My December – he recruited focus groups to offer opinions on a batch of the album's songs, with very negative results – and his surprise at learning that Rob and Fab didn't actually sing on the Milli Vanilli album. ("People thought I was in on this elaborate scheme," he writes.) Davis also offers up his own account of how he had to, in his words, "relinquish Arista," the label he started and had turned into a huge success, but was given $150 million to launch his own major, J Records, and its biggest star, Alicia Keys. ||||| Most readers will go straight to the Whitney Houston section of record mogul Clive Davis’s autobiography, “The Soundtrack of My Life,” published today by Simon & Schuster. It’s heartbreaking when you realize how much Davis did to try and help Houston. Davis includes letters he sent Whitney from the beginning of her career to the morning after her shockingly thin appearance – a result of her drug addiction– in September 2001 at Michael Jackson’s 30th anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden. 
 
 He wrote: “Dearest Whitney: When I saw you last night at the Michael Jackson concert, I gasped. When I got home I cried. My dear, dear Whitney. The time has come.” He implored her to get help quickly. She didn’t listen. 
 
 Read the full letter here: http://www.showbiz411.com/2013/02/19/clive-daviss-pleading-letter-to-whitney-houston-september-2011 
 
 Clive brought Whitney and her entourage to his home in Westchester County, New York, as a kind of intervention. It wasn’t to make money. It was to save her life. But she wouldn’t listen when he spoke to her with urgency about her problems. “She was in complete denial,” Davis writer. “I knew that if an addict does not want to get help, there ultimately is very little that anyone else can do.” 
 
 www.showbiz411.com/2013/02/19/clive-davis-responds-to-kelly-clarkson-an-accurate-depiction-of-our-time-together 
 
 There were at least two other interventions and rehab stints that Davis supported but didn’t engineer. But there is just so much you can do: when Whitney got into a fight with a flight attendant on her way to Detroit to shoot “Sparkle,” it made headlines. This reporter was the one who mentioned it to Clive, and suggested trouble was brewing. The disappointment on his face was palpable. It hurt him to hear she might be suffering again. 
 
 Davis got the call that Whitney died as he was dressing for his annual pre-Grammy dinner. She had just been in his hotel suite that week. He writes: “There are moments when time stands still, and you feel as if you can’t even begin to comprehend the words that are being spoken to you. That’s how I felt right then.”
– Clive Davis has a new memoir, out yesterday, that apparently reads more like a tell-all. In The Soundtrack of My Life, Davis recalls that Whitney Houston was "in complete denial" about her substance abuse problems. He includes letters he sent her, including one from 2001 in which he wrote, "When I saw you last night at the Michael Jackson concert, I gasped. When I got home I cried. My dear, dear Whitney. The time has come." But, he writes, she didn't listen when he pleaded with her to get help, according to Showbiz411. She "didn't understand the seriousness" of her addiction. A few other tidbits from the book that are getting attention: Davis comes out as bisexual, USA Today reports, discussing a relationship he once had with "a man who was also grounded in music" after his second marriage ended. He's currently in a relationship with another man. In another portion of the book, he describes his first sexual experience with a man in the "Studio 54" era, Rolling Stone reports. He also got himself into a spat with Kelly Clarkson. He says she "hated" "Since U Been Gone" and "burst into hysterical sobbing" while discussing the song, but Clarkson claims he got the story wrong, the Daily Beast reports. Davis, in turn, insists he got his facts straight. More details here.