Barricaded behind tightly drawn blinds at her Nashville home Monday, country singer Mindy McCready confirmed a long-term affair with embattled pitcher Roger Clemens.

"I cannot refute anything in the story," a tearful but resolute McCready told the Daily News, which broke the story at midnight Sunday.

The News reported that the two met in a Florida karaoke bar when McCready was a 15-year-old aspiring singer and Clemens was a 28-year-old ace for the Red Sox and a married father of two.

"Yes, I have known Roger Clemens for a long time," McCready said, reading from a prepared statement. "He's a kind and caring man. He's also a legendary athlete. The central topic in the debate, however, regards his professional life, not his personal life.

"There are legal matters working their way through the system that have nothing to do with me. From my point of view, that is where the focus should remain."

After the teenage McCready met Clemens at a Fort Myers bar called The Hired Hand, she returned with the Rocket to his hotel room, but there was no sex that night, sources told The News.

It wasn't until later, after McCready had moved to Nashville and become a country singing star, that the relationship turned intimate.

Clemens is under FBI investigation for perjury after denying, under oath, accusations by his former personal trainer Brian McNamee that the seven-time Cy Young Award winner used performance-enhancing drugs.

The Rocket filed a defamation suit against McNamee on Jan. 6. McNamee's lawyer Richard Emery said revelations of the affair would have a big impact on that case because they influence Clemens' claim that his reputation was damaged.

"If the case heads to trial and is not dismissed, as we feel it should be, we will be calling [McCready] as a witness," Emery said.

"The point is whether he was damaged by the allegations that he used steroids - he claims he was hurt. But if there are other women - and there's not just one case, but many - and he holds himself out as a family man and an American paradigm, it's relevant.

"None of this would have been revealed but for his lawsuit and sanctimonious testimony before Congress."

In a statement Monday, Clemens' lawyer Rusty Hardin confirmed McCready was a longtime friend of Clemens and his family, but said the relationship was not sexual.

"At no time did Roger engage in any kind of inappropriate or improper relationship with her," he said. But sources with knowledge of the relationship between the singer and Clemens say McCready has never met Roger's wife, Debbie Clemens.

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