In New Interview, Director Joel Schumacher Says He's Been with 20,000 Partners

Openly gay Hollywood director Joel Schumacher, behind hits like "St. Elmo's Fire" and "Batman Forever," gave an interview with Vulture this week about his career and personal life.

In the interview, the 79-year-old filmmaker opened up about his drug use and sex life, revealing that he's slept with a lot of people. Writer Andrew Goldman asked Schumacher to guess at how many partners he's had over the years. He responds by saying, "it would be in the double-digit thousands, but that is not unusual."

"Double-digit thousands. You mean like 2,000 or 3,000?" Goldman asked. Schumacher responded by correcting him, saying, "That's not double digits, that's single digits." The director later confirmed that he's had between "10 or 20" thousand partners.

"Now, a lot of gay people are getting married, they're adopting, or they're having children," Schumacher later told Vulture. "There wasn't any of that when I was young. If you went into a gay bar and there were 200 men in there, and you said, 'Okay, who wants to have a little house with a white picket fence, and a dog, and a child, raise your hands,' or 'Who wants to get laid tonight?'

"The concept of a lovely suburban life or raising children was not a high concept," he added.

Click here to read the full Vulture interview with Schumacher.