Harry Connick Jr. recalled an “unpleasant experience” with Frank Sinatra when he was “completely inappropriate” with his then-girlfriend and current wife, model Jill Goodacre.
The jazz artist remembered getting choked up during a performance in front of Sinatra, who died in 1998.
“That was an unpleasant experience because as much as I wanted to sing for him and everyone else … I don’t get nervous but I was really nervous for that and I blanked out,” he said on the UK’s “This Morning” (via Yahoo News). “I completely forget the words. I was with my wife, then my girlfriend, and then we saw Frank at the lift and I said, ‘We should go, I need to explain myself.'”
But when Connick, 52, tried to apologize to Sinatra, the “Fly Me to the Moon” singer ignored him and homed in on his Victoria’s Secret Angel girlfriend.
“I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m much better than what you saw,’ and he took my wife and held her face and said, ‘You’re beautiful,’ and kissed her on the mouth and that’s that.”
He added, “I’ve never been able to sing for him again. It was probably unacceptable then, it was a situation where it was an interesting thing. I think my affection for him in the context made it hilarious for her, but obviously it’s completely inappropriate.”
Connick and Goodacre got married in 1994 and share three daughters, 23-year-old Georgia, 22-year-old Sarah Kate and 17-year-old Charlotte.