EXCLUSIVE: 'I was 16, Frankie Valli was 39... he took advantage of a young virgin who loved him': The Jersey Boy's lover lifts the lid off her 20-year affair and reveals he was cruel, controlling and uncaring in bed
- April Kirkwood idolized Frankie Valli from the time she was aged seven
- April reveals in explosive MailOnline interview she had on-off affair with the three-times married Jersey boy for two decades
- Jersey Boys, the film directed by Clint Eastwood, is released this week; April's book about her time with Frankie is due out in August
- 'We had sex everywhere - dressing rooms, hotel rooms, tour buses, the back seat of limos, you name it, that’s where we did it,' April says
- She recalls one time they made love and the singing legend rolled over, lit a cigarette and blew out smoke and uttered: ‘By the way, I think I’m going to marry my girlfriend'
- 'One day when Frankie couldn’t find me, he found my aunt Ginny and hit on her. He didn’t care'
- Frankie was not very sophisticated, she says. 'If he could f*** it or eat it, it was good for him'
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Frankie Valli’s life story is about to be depicted on the big screen in Clint Eastwood’s Jersey Boys, based on the smash hit play about Valli and the Four Seasons, who grew up on the streets of Newark and skyrocketed to become one of the best-selling groups of all time.
But while Frankie's rise from the mean streets to superstardom is expected to be a huge hit, movie audiences will not be privy to Valli's darkest secrets.
Now, the long-time lover of the singing legend, April Kirkwood, is breaking her silence about her 20-year relationship with Valli and his dark, menacing and imperious side that few outside his inner circle ever knew, in a world exclusive interview with MailOnline.
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What a night: April Kirkwood was 11 years old when she attended her second Franki Valli and the Four Seasons concert in Youngstown, Ohio. 'The first time I saw him, I was smitten,' she says. She was seven
Too little, too late: 'I realize I was a fool to have waited for him,' April says now. 'I never asked him to leave his wife. I just kept hoping that he'd come through. I loved Frankie Valli, but I don't think he knew what love was'
To this day, April, now 56, has vivid memories of her shock as Valli casually delivered the news that he was getting married just seconds after they had enjoyed an exhausting night of love-making in a sumptuous five-star hotel room in Syracuse, New York.
The singing legend rolled over, lit a cigarette and blew out smoke uttering to April: ‘By the way, I think I’m going to marry my girlfriend.’
Thirty four years later, tears brim in her eyes.
‘It made me feel terrible, cheap and dirty when he told me he was going to marry another woman,’ she says. ‘It was so painful. I loved Frankie, and I thought he loved me. I thought one day he’d make me his wife.’
But the incident was indicative of all the years April spent as Frankie's lover.
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ShareApril is speaking for the first time about her steamy relationship with the Four Seasons singing star whose classic hits include ‘Sherry,’ ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry,’ ‘Walk Like a Man,’ ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,’ and ‘December 1963 (Oh, What A Night’).
The film Jersey Boys tells the story of the musical group's rise from obscurity in the rough and tumble neighborhood of New Jersey to become one of the biggest pop sensations of the ‘Sixties and ‘Seventies, their marriages, divorces, and the many groupies they bedded along the way.
April was one of those groupies... But she was no one-night stand.
The singing star, who celebrated his 80th birthday on May 3, took April’s virginity when she was barely 16. They maintained a clandestine on-again, off-again romance over two decades, finding themselves in each other’s arms across America.
Front and center: April was eight-years-old and she was already getting Frankie's attention. She was so crazy about him, her family dressed her up in a big plastic hat emblazoned with the word 'Frankie' in glitter to stand out from the crowd. Across her chest was a pageant banner reading 'Frankie'
Heartthrob: Girls swooned over Frank Valli in the'Sixties with his bedroom eyes and his wavy hair
‘He seduced me when I was just 16, took my virginity, and some of the best years of my life,’ April says. Valli was 39.
She says she was just an innocent child when she first met the entertainer, and developed the crush that would impact the rest of her life.
‘I was seven years old when my 18-year-old aunt Ginny first took me to see Frankie Valli,’ she recalls. ‘My parents, Ralph and Beverly Gatta, divorced when I was three, and my mom and I went to live on my grandmother’s chicken farm in Youngstown, Ohio.
'I was blonde, a cute kid, and the first time I saw Frankie Valli I was smitten. I went home and the next day bought his record album, which I still have.
'I don’t think my family ever meant to hurt me, but I loved Frankie Valli so much, they thought: “What can we do to help April get beside him?” So it began very innocently.
‘About the third concert we went to, they started dressing me up to stand out from the crowd, in a velvet suit like his, and in a big plastic hat emblazoned with the word “Frankie” in glitter. Across my chest I wore a pageant banner saying: “Frankie.”
'It was a very intimate moment and I'd never been so close with him touching my skin, my neck, my chest'
-April Kirkwood
‘I went to see him whenever he performed near Youngstown. He started to notice me in the hat. I’d go backstage after a show and he’d give me a friendly kiss, and let me hang around.
‘But by the time I was 16, and all dressed up, I went to see him before the show and he walked up, gave me a kiss on the forehead, and began untangling all the necklaces around my neck.
‘It was a very intimate moment, and I’d never been so close with him touching my skin, my neck, my chest.
‘I wore some gorgeous gauzy Seventies-type dress, and I knew I was very good looking. I was Miss Ohio teenager and went to modelling school. But I was a good girl, went to church three times a week, got straight As at school. I’ve never done drugs, and my parents trusted me.
'After untangling my necklaces,’ she went on, ‘he kissed me on the forehead, and said: “You’ve grown up. You’re beautiful. Would you like to come backstage for the show?”
‘I thought: Great. I’m going to marry Frankie Valli.
All in the family: Frankie also hit on April's Aunt Ginny, here with her niece decked out in a fur coast and beehive hairdo. 'He tried to get me into bed but I kicked him out of my hotel room,' she confirms to MailOnline
‘After the show he changed his clothes, took his makeup off, and said: “Do you want to go for a drink?” We went right to his hotel, the Holiday Inn on Belmont Avenue, had a couple of drinks, and went back to his room.
‘He kissed me, and said: “Do you want to be with me?” I could hardly talk. I said: “Uh-huh.”
‘He took my top off. I was a virgin, I didn’t know what I was doing, and he almost had to direct me.
‘But the sex was quick and it was over. There was no “I love you,” or “Thank you for sharing that with me.” It wasn’t fabulous, earth-shattering sex. I think he wanted to get to bed, and I had to get back to my parents.
‘I was 16, and he was 39, about the same age as my mother. But to me he was a god. Even today, when I see him with too many plastic surgeries and the grey hair, he’s a god.
‘Once I had sex with him, he said: “Now, don’t do this with anyone else.” That was sealing the deal. I thought we were going to get married. I loved him.
‘It didn’t last long, because I was home by midnight. But I loved him, so I didn’t care how that first night was. I’d loved him since I was seven years old.
‘I said: “I’d like to see you again,” and he said: “You too babe.”
‘I got home by midnight, got up the next morning and went to school.’
April’s mother had been sexually abused as a child and battled mental problems that left her struggling to cope with motherhood. She found it easiest to let April do as she wished - even if it meant aiding her daughter’s role in adultery.
Workin' my way back to you: After her divorce in 1994, April hooked up with Frankie again in Cleveland
‘I think Frankie was still married to his wife, Mary Ann, when we first made love,’ says April. ‘But to be honest, she wasn’t someone I really thought about. The next time, Frankie invited me to go out on tour with him for a few days.
‘I was put on the pill, and my mother drove me out to Frankie’s tour bus in Akron, Ohio, and told him: “Take care of my daughter.”
‘It was shocking that she’d let me go, but they thought: Well, she is beautiful, smart, and talented - maybe he does love her. He wanted to see me again. I don’t want to believe that he was just using me, over and over again.
We had sex everywhere - dressing rooms, hotel rooms, tours buses, the back seat of limos, you name it, that's where we did it.
‘So I was his for a few days. The most embarrassing thing was that we had sex on the bus, with people listening. The tour bus had small bunks, with curtains drawn across them for privacy. We had sex everywhere - dressing rooms, hotel rooms, tour buses, the back seat of limos, you name it, that’s where we did it.'
At the height of his fame, with hits like ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,’ ‘My Eyes Adored You,’ and ‘Grease,’ Valli had his pick of groupies.
April was one of those girls, but unlike other one-night stands, she became Valli’s long-time lover, seeing a man very different from the musical genius inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
‘I was treated like his girlfriend on the tour. A limo took us from the hotel to the concert. People photographed us together, and asked for my autograph.
Who loves you: The crooners quickly rose from the ranks to become one of the best selling musical groups of all time. Bob Gaudio (far left) wrote all the songs, says April, but when someone called him the 'cornerstone' of the group Frankie rudely interrupted saying: 'There would be no Four Seasons and no Bob Gaudio without Frankie Valli'
‘There were a lot of drugs around - marijuana and cocaine - but he never did it in front of me, and never offered it to me.
‘I’d see Frankie whenever I could. Every time I could get my hands on him, I would. That first time I went on the road with him, Frankie said he was going to take me away with him.
‘Then his daughter died of a drug overdose, and everything stopped. I was 19, and I lost touch with him for a couple of years.’
Reluctantly, she wed local boy Phillip Regano, but divorced after 18 months and fell back into Valli’s bed whenever she could.
‘Things were a little more sexually liberated; sex before marriage was more acceptable in the late ‘Seventies,’ she says.
A second marriage followed, to construction worker Bill Kirkwood, producing children Dana, now aged 30, and Grant, aged 26, but it ended after 17 years.
‘I kept seeing Frankie through those years, but I wouldn’t have sex with him,’ says April. ‘Frankie might not be faithful in a marriage, but I was.
‘But my love for Frankie Valli undermined my marriages, and undermined the choices of all the men I fell for. I had some good guys that really loved me, and I passed them up, because I was looking for a substitute for Frankie.
‘After my divorce, I went back to Frankie, who had split from his third wife, Toni. But it was always me pursuing him. I realized I never meant as much to him as he meant to me. I was just an Ohio groupie.’
Walk like a man: Frankie was the inspiration for the monster hit play Jersey Boys. Here he confers with director Clint Eastwood on the set of the film that opens this week
Under my skin: Audiences can't get enough of Jersey Boys in the theater and now thousands more will jump on the bandwagon in the film starring John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli
But it finally hit home that Frankie Valli was a man with many lovers and little loyalty.
‘It was devastating,’ says April. ‘But I didn’t shout or scream or throw anything. I just bit my lip, and bided my time. I figured he’d realize how much I loved him in the end. I felt I was just going to love him into this, come hell or high water.’
'I wasted many years of my life waiting for him,’ says April, now aged 56. ‘I wasted a lot of time on the wrong guy.
'He was disgusting, rude and callous, and insensitive to the effect he had.
'There was a streak of cruelty coursing through him, and it would slice through you just as raw and mean as a razor blade. He could be cruel, kissing a background singer in front of me, and trying to have sex with my aunt.
‘Sometimes he’d shuffle me off home and say: “You have to go now.” He’d cut our visit short, and I’d think it was because someone else was coming . . . and someone else . . . and someone else. That’s devastating to learn.
‘He’d say: “Here’s my phone number” when it wasn’t really his number, I was the eternal butt of his jokes.
‘It was disgusting the way he treated people, yelling and screaming. Bob Gaudio wrote all the Four Seasons songs, but when someone called him the "cornerstone" of the group Frankie rudely interrupted saying: “There would be no Four Seasons and no Bob Gaudio without Frankie Valli.”
'He’d scream and shout and go ballistic when things didn’t go right. He’s a diva.
Tough guy: Frank was busted in 1965 in Columbis, Ohio after his manager skipped out on a hotel bill. And he played mobster Rusty Millio in Season 5 and 6 of HBO's The Sopranos
‘One day when Frankie couldn’t find me, he found my aunt Ginny and hit on her. He didn’t care. She would have been just another warm body. I was heartbroken.’
Ginny Wieland, now aged 67, in Chicago, Illinois, confirms: ‘He made a pass at me and tried to get me into bed, but I kicked him out of my hotel room. I told him I could never do that to my niece. He was a real sleaze-ball.’
Yet Valli had different standards for his women.
‘Frankie is a control freak,’ says April. ‘I was kept on a short leash. He didn’t like me talking to other men when I was with him on the road. He was very possessive and controlling,
‘But he was a run-around. He slept with anybody. I don’t think he had to womanize; people just wanted to be with him. Yet he wasn’t sophisticated. If he could f—k it or eat it, it was good for him.
‘He knew me since I was seven, knew that I loved him, and he could have protected me. He could have just been a father figure to me . . . or he could have loved me.
‘He was callous. I don’t think he cared. He had more money than God, but he wasn’t kind. He just walked all over people. People who worked for him would shudder when he walked by.
‘They knew when they made a mistake: you could be kicked out at any minute and told to go home. I’ve never met anyone who likes him. Everyone I’ve met says he’s a mean SOB. That’s frightening.
‘He was not the man I thought he was. He’s manipulative, a schemer, a screamer, and Napoleonic. I learned that the Frankie Valli I’d loved was not real.
Bye bye baby: April has moved on with her life, living now in Miami, Florida, and hosting a relationship advice show on nice radio stations
‘I was abused. He took advantage of a good thing: A young virgin who loved him, and he was an opportunist.
‘And he was a selfish lover. He wasn’t concerned about me, ever. Not ever. I gave my virginity to him, and that should have been with someone who cared for me.
‘He’d be cunning and manipulative. He’d scream at the background dancers, demanding things with a click of his fingers. He believes that the louder you scream, the more he’d get.
‘One time we were in Newcastle, Ohio, and he demanded that all this gourmet food should be delivered to the concert venue. Then he never touched it, just breezed right by it.
'And he was insensitive. He treated women like second class citizens. I think he uses women. I saw a photo of him recently with his new girlfriend, and his grandchildren are probably older than her. It’s about power: he can control young girls.'
‘I guess there were thousands of girls like me, a girl in every port,’ she says. ‘But I loved him, and I thought he loved me.’
April’s story is poignant not only for her devotion to Valli, but for his role in prolonging her delusional hope that he would one day leave his wife and marry her.
‘But I realize I was a fool to have waited for him. I never asked him to leave his wife. I just kept hoping that he’d come through. I loved Frankie Valli, but I don’t think he knew what love was.’
‘And as the years passed, I realized Frankie’s not that educated. It’s not his fault he didn’t go to college, doesn’t talk right, and never reads a book.
Big girls do cry: April's autobiography is due out at the end of August
He could have grown, but instead he stayed a narcissistic, greedy man. He lies to himself. When he was married to Mary Ann he had Toni on the side and was sleeping with me.’
Living now in sun-soaked Miami, Florida, April looks two decades younger than her 56 years, with long blonde hair, wide cheekbones, big brown Bambi eyes, and bikini-ready curves.
'I’ve been blessed with good looks,’ she concedes.
April has two masters degrees in psychological counseling, hosts a relationship advice show on nine radio stations, and is writing a memoir about her love for Valli.
She last saw Frankie in 2010, at the Hard Rock Cafe in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
‘I sent him a photo backstage of me in his tour T-shirt that said ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry.’ We met, but I didn’t like his attitude and said: “I’m never coming back. You never loved me. I hope in the next life you find me, but I’m not doing this any more.”
'I think maybe he was relieved.’
When the play ‘Jersey Boys’ toured the US April went to see the show, and recalls: ‘I had mascara cascading down my face. That’s my story up on stage.’
If she could see Valli one more time, she has some choice words for him.
‘I’d tell him: I wasn’t like those girls in ‘Jersey Boys.’ I didn’t want a fling. I wanted to know you. I wanted you to love me.
‘I wish you’d told me from the start: “April, I’m not going to have sex with you,” or said: “You’re too young.” I would have still loved you as a friend. I’d have taken care of you when you got old, because I love you even as a friend. When you die, I’ll grieve deeply.
‘I’m not just one of those dumb girls you pick up. I really loved you. I always will. I think I still love Frankie Valli now.’
April begs to differ with the title of one of Valli’s biggest hits, however.
'Big girls do cry,’ she says. ‘They cry hard and loud . . . But then we get up and we keep moving. Today, this big girl is done crying.’
April is releasing a book about her life and times with Valli called The Endless Season in August.
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