McCready recording again after Clemens report

updated 8:11 p.m. ET May 5, 2008

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Mindy McCready has “caught her breath” and gone back to work on a new album following her admission of a long-standing relationship with Roger Clemens, a representative for the country star said Wednesday.

“The first day was really difficult for her. She really has caught her breath,” her management consultant, John Dotson, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “She did vocals yesterday and will do vocals today.

McCready told The New York Daily News on Monday that she “cannot refute anything” in the newspaper’s original report posted Sunday night on its Web site. The story said Clemens and McCready met in a Florida karaoke bar when she was a 15-year-old aspiring singer and he was a 28-year-old pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and a married father of two.

“This is Roger’s situation to deal with and we’ve come back to work,” Dotson said. “We didn’t go looking for this. They called us. We have a record to make and are in the middle of negotiating a deal on a reality show.”

Citing anonymous sources, the newspaper said McCready went with Clemens to his hotel room after their first meeting, but that they did not have sex. The relationship turned intimate after she later moved to Nashville and became a country star, the paper said.

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Clemens’ lawyer, Rusty Hardin, confirmed that the pitcher and singer had known each other for a long time but told the newspaper that no sex was involved. At no time did Clemens engage in inappropriate or improper relationship with her, said Hardin, who described McCready as a longtime friend of Clemens and his family.

Still, the report could undermine Clemens’ reputation, which is central to a defamation lawsuit he filed against former personal trainer Brian McNamee.

McNamee contends Clemens used performance-enhancing substances during his major league career.

The 32-year-old McCready came to Nashville in 1994 with tapes of her karaoke vocals and earned a contract with BNA Records. Two years later, her song “Guys Do It All the Time” hit No. 1 on the country charts.

But her subsequent albums didn’t sell as well, and she lost her record deal. Attempts to restart her career tanked.

McCready, who’s currently signed to Denver-based Iconic Records, has had a string of legal and personal problems in recent years and was sentenced last September for violating probation from a 2004 drug arrest. She was released from jail Dec. 30.

The newspaper reported that Clemens sent cash to McCready to help her with legal issues and reached out to her when she was in jail.

Dotson said McCready will be meeting with a New York-based public relations firm this week to “see what to do next.”

“We want to be sure we don’t inadvertently do something wrong,” he said.

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