Ernest Hemingway wore girls clothes

Mental Floss recently published a brief, provocative piece about American literary giant and macho man Ernest Hemingway‘s being forced by his loony mother as a child to wear little girls’ clothes.

Hemingway referred to his mother Grace as “an all-time, all-American bitch” and went to great lengths to keep the details of his childhood a secret. He would have succeeded had not his sister Marcelline published a tell-all memoir.

The author writes:

Grace, who was perhaps not the most balanced woman of all times, had always wanted twins. Instead, she got Marcelline and then, 18 months later, Ernest. Submitting to her twin fantasies, she started dressing Ernest up in Marcelline’s old clothes, despite the fact that they were little girl’s clothes—lacey white dresses with pink bows and the like. Soon his mom was buying two of everything and dressing her children in identical pink gowns and flowered hats. She would refer to the kids as her “sweet Dutch dollies” and actually tell strangers that they were her twin girls

No wonder Hemingway spent his entire bravado-filled life trying to prove how masculine he was!