New York Post

It’s Hizzoner to take Chirlane

-

BILL de Blasio has been on the dating circuit since the summer, having been spied making out with a woman and courting another who was still married (she told us she was in the process of getting divorced). But he took his own wife as his date to an A-list event Friday.

De Blasio, 62, and Chirlane McCray, 69, separated in July but still live — and apparently hit the town — together, practicing something of an open relationsh­ip.

The former first couple of New York had attendees calling Page Six when they showed up together to a “celebratio­n of life” for Harry Belafonte at Riverside Church uptown Friday.

The friendly exes were “in good spirits,” snapping photos and chatting with fellow guests, we’re told.

McCray has said of their split: “This is a big change for us, but Bill and I are still very much in love . . . We came to this decision together and I think it’s the right decision for us.”

Bernie Sanders and his wife, Jane, were another political couple among the starry crowd, which also included Gayle King, Angela Davis, Wynton Marsalis, Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Chuck D, Kenneth Cole and Spike Lee and his wife, Tonya Lewis. Rev. Adriene Thorne and Rev. James Forbes provided opening remarks, and Aloe Blacc sang with the Harlem Choir.

Spike and Whoopi were among the speakers who remembered their time with the legendary civil rights activist and entertaine­r, who died in April at 96 of congestive heart failure.

Lee recalled that Belafonte teased him all the time, saying the director “always gives a role of the older man to Ossie Davis,” a spy at the celebratio­n told us. Lee remedied that by giving Belafonte a role in his 2018 film “BlacKkKlan­sman,” and Belafonte signed a “Carmen Jones” poster for him: “Now, I could go to heaven having a Spike Lee Joint!” (as Lee calls his films).

Marsalis and his band closed out the threehour celebratio­n, held on what would’ve been Belafonte’s 97th birthday.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States