JIMI HENDRIX, the rock guitarist notorious for his rampant pursuit of women, escaped military service by pretending he was homosexual, according to a new biography.

Hendrix told military psychiatrists he had started fantasising about his bunkmates and was in love with one of them, after serving for a year as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division.

The ruse, an early act of rock’n’roll rebellion, succeeded, and he was discharged in 1962 at the age of 19 from his base in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He embarked on a musical career and within five years had a top 10 hit with Hey Joe.

Medical records unearthed by Charles Cross, Hendrix’s biographer, show how the flamboyant guitarist exploited the military’s suspicions about his unconventional behaviour to secure his discharge. Hendrix claimed to have lost 15lb in weight through being “lovesick” to support his deception.

Until now biographers have accepted Hendrix’s claim that he was discharged after breaking his ankle in a parachute jump. He joined the paratroop division because it paid higher wages in recognition of the added risk.

Hendrix said he came to resent the military almost immediately after he joined. He was ridiculed for his habit of sleeping with his guitar and was furious that the army only allowed him to play in his band, the King Kasuals, when he was on leave.

Seven years after leaving the airbase, Hendrix went on to provoke conservative opinion by mutilating the American national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner, with a heavy metal version played at Woodstock in 1969.

Hendrix’s talent and striking appearance placed him in the vanguard of the 1960s music scene. He bedded scores of female admirers during his lengthy stays in London after 1966.

Cross, whose book Roomful of Mirrors, named after a Hendrix song, is published next month, reveals fresh details of Hendrix’s failed attempt to woo Mick Jagger’s then girlfriend, Marianne Faithfull. Hendrix demanded to know why she preferred Jagger to him and “flagrantly flirted with her” at the Speakeasy club in London. Faithfull is quoted in the book as saying that her decision to reject him remains one of her “greatest regrets”.

Hendrix’s other lovers included Kathy Etchingham, whom he dated for three years but was repeatedly unfaithful to. Etchingham is now married to a Surrey doctor.

Hendrix also enjoyed a two-day fling in Paris with Brigitte Bardot, the French actress, in 1969, the year before his death from a drug overdose.

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