INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen Arrested For Domestic Assault

By Amy Feinstein
Published on: 03:29 PST, Jan 6, 2016

Donald Fagen of the legendary band Steely Dan was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence. The band’s frontman and co-founder got into a physical scuffle with his wife, musician Libby Titus, on Monday night, and Fagen ended up getting charged with misdemeanor assault.

According to Rolling Stone, Donald Fagen ended up spending the night in jail. He was released on his own recognizance on Tuesday morning.

“[Titus] and Fagen were involved in a verbal dispute, at which point he grabbed her by the arm and pushed her,” the spokesperson said. “She fell, bruising her arm.”

The criminal complaint has Titus saying that Fagen threw her around their apartment.

According to a criminal complaint obtained by the paper, Fagen allegedly pushed Titus into a marble window frame, “causing her to fall onto the frame and suffer bruising and swelling to her right arm, as well as substantial pain.”

Fagen and Titus have been married since 1993, but talk of divorce had been looming lately.

Page Six says that the wife of Steely Dan’s lead singer is throwing in the towel and filing for divorce from Fagen.

“I don’t feel good,” Libby told the New York Post when reached by phone. “I’m very tired and I’m divorcing my husband.”

But Titus has already mentioned that she won’t be pressing charges against the Steely Dan frontman.

“I just spoke to his manager. I called him, and we’re friends. I don’t know what to do. I can’t talk to you about it. I’m not going to press charges,” she said, declining to elaborate.

So it seems like Fagen is off of the hook for now, but fans will have to see.

Tablet Magazine interviewed Fagen before this latest event and found a man who is clever and witty. Hagen discussed some of his favorite collaborations.

“We thought jazz was on its way out,” recalled Fagen, finding anywhere to look other than at the guy in front of him. “For one thing, it was that the aggressive political stance that the black community was taking was affecting the music in a way that was not particularly positive. I thought that it was becoming a political music and, as much I as I could sympathize with the political positions, I just didn’t like what was happening to the music. On the other hand, that was the most creative time for black music in the pop field. There was Motown, there was Memphis, there was Muscle Shoals. Getting into the ’70s, you had Sly and the Family Stone, you had Isaac Hayes, and we were very taken with Laura Nyro, and we used to listen to Eli and the Thirteenth Confession over and over again in Walter’s dorm room.”

And Fagen explained that he had no idea that he would be chosen to be the lead singer of Steely Dan.

“I didn’t think I was gonna be the lead singer,” he recalled. “Walter and I wanted a real singer for the band. We already had a band and a record contract, but neither of us wanted to sing. Jeff Baxter, who was in the band, said he knew this guy David Palmer from Boston and he said, ‘Hey, he looks like Roger Daltrey.’ So, he came out to California and rehearsed with him. But after a few songs, we realized that he didn’t have the attitude. We didn’t like him that much anyway. We didn’t like the sound of his voice that much. Walter and I really just wanted to play.”

Do you think Donald Fagen will go to jail for this act of domestic violence?

[Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images]

Share this article: Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen Arrested For Domestic Assault
More from Inquisitr