Lou Reed's sister denies parents sent singer to electroshock therapy for 'homosexual urges'

Velvet Underground singer’s sister says he was 'depressed, weird, anxious, and avoidant' as a teenager

(AFP/Getty )

The sister of Lou Reed has addressed questions over psychiatric treatment he received as a teenager in an essay published ahead of his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Merrill Reed Weiner denied her parents approved electroshock therapy (ECT) because the Velvet Underground singer had expressed homosexual tendencies when he was younger.

Writing for Medium, his younger sibling said she hoped her piece would provide “clarity and context” over “childhood issues that contributed to his artistic genius”.

The late musician's perceived bisexuality has been subject to debate throughout his life and after his death.

In her essay, Weiner said Reed was anxious, withdrawn and beset with panic attacks as a teenager, later experimenting with drugs when he was 16.

He possessed a fragile temperament,” she wrote. “His hyper-focus on the things he liked led him to music and it was there that he found himself.”

After he grew more and more uncommunicative, Weiner said her parents took him to a psychiatrist, who recommended ECT.

“My parents were like lambs being led to the slaughter — confused, terrified, and conditioned to follow the advice of doctors," she wrote. "They never even got a second opinion. Told by doctors that they were to blame and that their son suffered from severe mental illness, they thought they had no choice.”

Lou Reed performs onstage during the 2009 Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago, 2009. (Roger Kisby/Getty Images)

Weiner dismissed suggestions in some reports that ECT was approved by her parents because her brother had “confessed to homosexual urges” as simplistic.

“He was depressed, weird, anxious, and avoidant. My parents were many things, but homophobic they were not. In fact, they were blazing liberals.

“They were caught in a bewildering web of guilt, fear, and poor psychiatric care. Did they make a mistake in not challenging the doctor’s recommendation for ECT? Absolutely. I have no doubt they regretted it until the day they died.”

Reed died from liver disease in 2013 at the age of 71. He will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday.