Former Bee Gees star Robin Gibb has played down rumours he enjoys an 'open marriage' - insisting he and wife DWINA are more "conservative" than most couples.
Reports suggesting the couple enjoy relations outside their 24-year marriage hit the headlines last year (09) after the singer fathered a child with his 34-year-old housekeeper.
The news appeared to cement long-held speculation that the pair had other sexual partners, following comments Gibb made to U.S. shock jock DJ Howard Stern in the 1990s about the pair's love of threesomes.
But Gibb has backtracked on his risque remarks, insisting he was only joking with Stern and that he enjoys a "free relationship" with his wife rather than a sexually liberated one.
He tells Britain's Daily Mail, "It wasn't a serious interview. Howard Stern was making up stories about his wife and other women, so I plugged into the joke. I was having fun in his world.
"We've never really said we have an open marriage. People like to imagine you've got a certain lifestyle, but it's not quite like that at all... We actually have a very conservative relationship - more so than the average couple. We don't drink or smoke. We're not partying all the time. My idea of a good time is creating something and reading a good book.
"Look, we're not stuffed shirts. We have a free relationship. We give each other time and space to pursue activities - that doesn't mean other people. But people have got to see it in terms of freedom of sex, because that's the way they think. The average person can't get it into their head that you don't have to be talking about the physical the whole time. You can have individual freedom of space without that."