Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Were Once Mistaken for a Same-Sex Couple
Jimmy Page was the mastermind behind Led Zeppelin. His guitar-playing, producing, and songwriting skills helped propel the band to incredible heights. Still, Page’s music career took off a bit earlier at art school. When the Yardbirds fell apart and he sought to start Led Zeppelin, his first task was to add a singer. Page knew Robert Plant was the right vocalist for Zep when he first saw him perform, and the two enjoyed a close relationship within the band. They were so close that Page and Plant were once mistaken for a same-sex couple and not a pair of rockstars.
Jimmy Page made Robert Plant the first piece of the Led Zeppelin puzzle
Page worked as a session musician for several years before latching on with the Yardbirds. He took over the lead guitar duties when his friend Jeff Beck left the group, and the band was Page’s playground for roughly two years. The guitarist plowed ahead and formed a new band when the Yardbirds splintered in the summer of 1968.
Page’s first task was adding a singer. Plant blew the guitarist away performing a tiny show at an odd venue and locked up the role of lead singer. Plant recommended his former bandmate John Bonham on drums, Page brought session player John Paul Jones into the mix, and Led Zeppelin was born.
Page and Plant bonded over their shared love of blues and early rock and roll music and formed a close working relationship almost immediately. The pair decamped to a Welsh cottage to write songs for Led Zeppelin III, which was around the time Page and Plant were mistaken for a same-sex couple.
A Piccadilly Circus worker mistook Page and Plant for a same-sex couple
Led Zeppelin quickly cranked out their first two albums. The band’s debut hit shelves in early 1969 after they recorded it in the fall of ‘68. Led Zeppelin II came out 10 months after the first. After nearly non-stop recording and touring, Page and Plant took a short breather at Bron-Yr-Aur, a Welsh cottage, before starting on 1970’s Led Zeppelin III.
The back of the album’s sleeve included a message crediting “Bron-Y-Aur [spelled incorrectly on the album jacket], a small derelict cottage in South Snowdonia, for painting a somewhat forgotten picture of true completeness, which acted as an incentive to some of these musical statements.”
Page said a pamphleteer mentioned that message when he asked her to travel to Scotland with him. As the guitarist mentioned during an interview with The Guardian (via YouTube), she thought Page and Plant were a same-sex couple.
“There was this girl who was sort of giving out leaflets at Piccadilly Circus. She was rather attractive, and I was going up to Scotland that evening, and I sort of invited her to come up to Scotland. I had to sort out who I was to invite her up to Scotland. She sort of knew about the third album, and she said, ‘You can’t be him. You’re gay.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about, being gay? I’m inviting you to Scotland.’ And she said, ‘Well, it’s what’s written on the album, about this whole sort of thing about true completeness.’ So she thought Robert and I were a couple. I’ve got to tell you, she didn’t come up to Scotland. I walked off in disgust.”
Jimmy Page recalls how he and Robert Plant were mistaken for a couple
Page already didn’t like the cover for Led Zeppelin III. The message on the back robbing him of a chance to get to know a member of the opposite sex a little better was another checkmark against the album’s sleeve for the guitarist.
The duo maintained a close relationship in Led Zeppelin and afterward
Led Zeppelin became nearly legendary for their extracurricular activities with members of the opposite sex. To be clear, Page and Plant were never a couple. They enjoyed a tight relationship during Zep’s heyday and beyond.
The duo vacationed together in 1975. That was the trip when Plant and his family were involved in a near-fatal car crash in Greece. The band ushered Plant back to work while he recovered, which led to the singer calling out Page and Led Zeppelin’s manager on one Presence song.
The pair got back together for the 1994 No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded project. The guitarist also revealed to The Guardian that he and Plant vacationed together in Morocco after Led Zeppelin broke up.
Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were once mistaken for a couple. They weren’t one, but they clearly enjoyed a close musical relationship.
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