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48-Year-Old Man Says He’s Bob Dylan’s Son
A 48-year-old Rhode Island man named William DeVogue claims that after decades of searching for his biological mother, he tracked her down and discovered that his father is none other than Bob Dylan.
On his website, TheDeVogueProject.com, DeVogue says, “there was always a burning desire to find my biological ties.” He was given up for adoption when he was 10 months old and then adopted by a Middletown, R.I., family when he was 3. At age 15 DeVogue received some clues to his roots when his mother gave him a small plastic bag that contained a photograph taken when he was 6 months old, a lock of hair and a baptismal certificate, according to Newport This Week.
In his quest to find his birth parents DeVogue searched record and phone books as well as online databases, hired Internet detectives, created multiple Facebook accounts with his birth name and adopted name, and looked through records at the Massachusetts Department of Vital Statistics.
DeVogue finally found his biological mother, Anita “Tina” Grace DeVogue, in 2009 in a three-family home in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Minneapolis blog Gimme Noise reports that after several visits to the home Tina told DeVogue she “was pretty sure” Bob Dylan is his biological father.
Photo: AP Photo
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Tina allegedly met Dylan in the early 1960s when she was trying to make it as a folk singer in Greenwich Village. She was impregnated in the summer of 1963 and DeVogue was born May 12, 1964. Tina decided to give DeVogue up for adoption because of a serious drug addiction and lack of funds.
DeVogue told Gimme Noise that he is “as sure as I can be without a DNA test” that Dylan is his father. The blog notes that he trusts his mother’s story and has also factored in information about the time frame of conception.
He allegedly contacted Dylan’s manager, Jeff Rosen, in 2010 through a telephone conversation and several emails. DeVogue told Gimme Noise that Dylan refused his request to take a “non-legal paternity test.”
“I then told Jeff Rosen that I would have to resort to ‘plan B,’” DeVogue says. “He was very inquisitive to what plan B was, and my answer was that since I didn’t have the money to legally seek a paternity test that I would have to bring it out creatively.”
His creative plan is an upcoming book, “Not Forgetting Tina,” and a short film.
“I respect Bob and want no money from him, just the truth,” DeVogue told Gimme Noise. “And I will get it!”
DeVogue points out that he has never received any phone calls from the singer’s lawyers telling him to stop telling his story. He says Dylan knows that if he tried to take DeVogue to court that “everything will come out.”
Dylan allegedly said he has “no recollection” of fathering a child with Tina.
Click here for Gimme Noise’s story.
Click here for Newport This Week’s story.
Visit DeVogue’s website at TheDeVogueProject.com. You can check out a picture of DeVogue to see for yourself if he has any resemblance to Dylan.