Paul Anka Spills the Tea on Frank Sinatra's Legendary Anatomy

In the annals of celebrity gossip, few rumors have endured quite like the whispered legends surrounding Frank Sinatra's anatomy. For generations, it's been the kind of story passed around in hushed tones at parties, referenced in biographies, and debated in the spaces where pop culture obsessives gather. But on December 2, 2025, Paul Anka—one of the last living members of the Rat Pack's inner circle—decided it was finally time to confirm what Hollywood insiders have apparently known for decades: yes, Sinatra was, in fact, extraordinarily well-endowed.

Speaking to Page Six in an interview promoting a new HBO documentary, the 84-year-old crooner didn't mince words. "Yeah, it was huge, "Anka said simply." I don't know what that does for you!" The candor was refreshing, the timing unexpected, and the cultural implications surprisingly rich—especially for LGBTQ+ audiences who have long understood that celebrity gossip, particularly about men's bodies, is never just about prurience. It's about power, desirability, and the ways queer culture creates its own mythology around the icons we're told to admire.

Anka's revelation came with a delightfully awkward detail: he had "trouble with eye contact" during shared sauna visits with Sinatra and other members of the Rat Pack in Las Vegas. The image is almost comedic—grown men, freshly showered from performances, navigating the intimate space of a sauna while trying desperately to maintain composure. It's the kind of moment that would have made for perfect material on a 1960s episode of "Mad Men", if the show had dared to go there.

Of course, Anka wasn't the first to comment on Sinatra's impressive anatomy. That distinction belongs, somewhat fittingly, to Ava Gardner—Sinatra's second wife, whom he married in 1951 following his divorce from his first wife, Nancy Barbato. Their marriage lasted until 1957, and it was notoriously volatile, marked by passion, jealousy, and the kind of tabloid drama that defined the era.

According to "Vanity Fair", when Gardner was asked during an interview why she remained with Sinatra despite their turbulent relationship, she reportedly replied with a quip that has echoed through Hollywood lore for nearly seven decades: "Well, I'll tell you—nineteen pounds is cock." It's a statement that operates on multiple levels—a crude joke, yes, but also a woman asserting her own agency and desire, refusing to be coy about what kept her in a relationship that was otherwise clearly difficult.

For queer audiences, Gardner's comment carries additional resonance. Here was a woman who understood her own sexuality and wasn't afraid to speak about it in terms that were decidedly un-ladylike for the 1950s. In a cultural moment when homosexuality was criminalized and even heterosexual women were expected to be demure about their desires, Gardner's bluntness was radical. She was claiming space to desire, to speak about desire, and to do so on her own terms—something that queer people, who have historically been denied such freedom, have long recognized and celebrated.

But here's where Anka's revelation takes an unexpected turn. According to the legendary performer, Sinatra—impressive as he was—didn't actually top the charts when it came to celebrity endowment. That distinction, Anka claims, belongs to comedian Milton Berle. "Crazy, of all people—Milton Berle! "Anka exclaimed.

The comparison is almost absurd—Berle, best known for his role as "Mr. Television" and his infamous appearance on "Saturday Night Live", becoming the unexpected victor in a decades-long unofficial competition about male anatomy. Yet this is precisely the kind of trivia that has sustained celebrity culture for generations. It's the sort of thing that gets passed down, embellished, and eventually becomes part of the cultural fabric. And for LGBTQ+ audiences, who have long engaged in detailed, unapologetic discussions about male bodies and desire, it's entirely fitting that such a conversation would eventually be had publicly, by aging rock stars, in the pages of mainstream media.

On the surface, Anka's confirmation might seem like nothing more than salacious gossip—the kind of thing that gets shared as a joke at brunch and then forgotten. But it actually speaks to something deeper about how queer culture engages with celebrity, mythology, and desire.

For decades, LGBTQ+ communities have created their own narratives around straight celebrities, reading queerness into moments and relationships, creating fan fiction and speculation about the "real" lives of the famous. This practice—sometimes called "reading," sometimes called "interpretation"—isn't frivolous. It's a way of asserting agency in a culture that has historically denied queer people the right to speak openly about desire, sexuality, and the bodies we find attractive.

The Sinatra rumor, in this context, becomes something more than mere gossip. It's a story about how desire circulates in culture, about the ways bodies become legendary, and about the spaces—like saunas, like locker rooms, like the private conversations of the Rat Pack—where men could acknowledge and discuss attraction without the rigid heteronormative frameworks that governed public discourse.

Anka's willingness to finally confirm the rumor, at 84 years old and with nothing left to lose, represents a kind of cultural reckoning. He's essentially saying: yes, this thing you all knew, this thing that was whispered about and denied, was real. And in doing so, he's validating decades of cultural memory-making, the kind that queer people have been doing all along.

The Rat Pack itself—that famous circle of mid-century entertainers including Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. , Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop—has long been a subject of queer fascination. These were men who spent enormous amounts of time together, who worked together, played together, and yes, showered together in Vegas saunas. The intimacy of their friendship—the way they supported each other's careers, celebrated each other's romantic conquests, and created a world unto themselves—has always contained homoerotic undertones that queer audiences have been quick to recognize.

This isn't to suggest that the Rat Pack members were queer . Rather, it's to acknowledge that there's a particular kind of male intimacy that exists in spaces like the entertainment industry, and that this intimacy can be read, appreciated, and celebrated without requiring explicit sexual orientation labels. Queer culture has always been skilled at recognizing and honoring these spaces of connection, these moments of vulnerability and openness between men.

Anka's sauna story fits perfectly into this framework. It's a moment of homosocial intimacy—men together, bodies visible, the usual social masks temporarily removed. And it's a moment that Anka, now in his 80s, is finally comfortable discussing publicly.

What's perhaps most striking about Anka's revelation is not the confirmation itself, but the fact that it took this long. For nearly seven decades, this rumor has circulated, been denied, been defended, and been celebrated in various corners of culture. It's become part of the Sinatra mythology—inseparable from his music, his style, his cultural impact.

In confirming it now, Anka is essentially saying that this part of Sinatra's legacy matters too. Not in a reductive way, but as part of the full picture of who Sinatra was—a man who inspired not just musical devotion, but also fascination, desire, and yes, gossip. He's acknowledging that the stories we tell about celebrities'bodies and desires are part of how we understand culture, sexuality, and power.

For LGBTQ+ audiences, this feels particularly important. We've spent generations creating our own narratives, reading between the lines, and finding meaning in the spaces that mainstream culture left blank. Now, here's Paul Anka, one of the last living links to Old Hollywood, finally filling in one of those blanks. It's not revolutionary, but it is, in its own small way, a validation—a recognition that the stories we've been telling all along contained truth.