Springsteen’s Guitarist Admits He Was Addicted to Threesomes

Steven Van Zandt, a guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, writes in a new memoir that he had so many romantic trysts in the 1970s that he “developed a temporary addiction to ménages à trois.” In an interview with Page Six, the rocker explained that, for the era, threesomes were not unusual. “It was a real sexually liberated time. The seventies, there’s never been anything quite like it, honestly,” he said. “It was just a wild, wild time, and women were truly, truly liberated there for a minute. I mean, it was a really wonderful time to be alive.”

The book, Unrequited Infatuations, traverses Van Zandt’s earliest days with a then-unknown Springsteen through to his recent work, including his second act turn as Silvio Dante on The Sopranos. (Van Zandt’s wife, Maureen, whom he credited as having been the cure for his threesome “addiction,” played his onscreen wife.) The guitarist writes that the show’s creator, David Chase, originally wanted Van Zandt for the role of Tony Soprano. When the network balked at casting someone with no acting experience, Van Zandt recommended another actor called James Gandolfini after seeing him audition for another part.