CLARKSDALE, MS - The Morgan Freeman sex scandal is picking up steam. The National Enquirer reported more than a month ago that the 72-year-old Freeman carried on a decade long affair with his 27-year-old step-granddaugter, E'Dena Hines, beginning when she was a teenager.
The affair, according to anonymous sources cited by The Enquirer, led to the break-up of Freeman's 25-year marriage to his second wife, Myrna Colley-Lee. The two are in the middle of a bitter divorce right now.
His rumored affair with Hines has been hot news for the last several weeks on gossip websites, remaing tabloid fodder, until Monday, July 27, 2009 when MSN posted a link to the story on its' homepage.
"People have been talking about it," says Daryl Bell, the managing editor of the Clarksdale Press Register.
Freeman, a Mississippi native, owns several properties in Clarksdale, including his Madidi Restaurant. He's a hometown hero to most here, thanks to his generosity and the celebrity he brings to the small Delta town.
So when The National Enquirer broke the Hines' story in June, Bell says his paper passed on it.
"In my professional opinion," he tells myEyewitnessNews.com, "we didn't think it was a story. The Enquirer only had one anonymous source. We came to the conclusion it was a tabloid rumor."
Freeman's PR team says it's a non-story, too. When myEyewitnessNews.com called Freeman's publicist, Donna Lee, she declined comment, even though she had no problem giving the media information last year after the actor's car wreck.
For this story, however, Lee referred us to Dave Falkenstein, a media consultant at the high-profile PR firm, Sunshine, Sachs and Associates out of New York City. The same agency was recently hired by Michael Jackson's family to handle the press.
"I am not going to dignify anything reported by The Enquirer," Falkenstein tells myEyewitnessNews.com. "The story is totally absurd. They have no sources. Only ridiculous things are printed by The Enquirer."
Back in Clarksdale, Freeman fans are not quick to believe the rumors.
"The National Enquirer has broken big stories," says John Dalton. "But on this one, I'm not sure. My reaction is that Morgan Freeman is a great actor and I have great respect for him. And his personal life is a private matter that I probably wouldn't comment on to the media."
Dalton and John Steffan are Chicagoans on a blues pilgrimmage through Memphis and Clarksdale. They have reservations at Madidi on Wednesday, and as Steffan admits, reservations about The Enquirer's story.
"Boy, I don't know," say Steffan, "that's a serious allegation. I would want more facts than that if I was going to believe it, I guess."
But seeing the article pop up on MSN's homepage Monday gives at least one journalist reason to believe this story might have legs.
"We haven't touched on it," says Daryl Bell with the Press Register, "but that may change in the next 24-hours. We'll decide then if we're going to take it from there."
E'Dena Hines is the biological granddaughter of Freeman's first wife. She was raised by the actor and his second wife, Myrna. Hines attended several Hollywood events with Freeman, including last year's premiere of The Dark Knight.
