The newspaper reported that in one case, Mr Romney and several schoolmates held down classmate John Lauber and cut off his bleached blond hair after seeking him out in his dorm room at their prestigious boarding school. The Post said Lauber was "perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality" and that he screamed for help as Romney held him down.
The paper recounted another incident in which Romney shouted "atta girl" to a different student at the all-boys' school who, years later, came out as gay.
"I participated in a lot of hijinks and pranks during high school and some may have gone too far. And for that I apologise," Mr Romney told Fox News' Brian Kilmeade during a hastily arranged radio interview. Romney said he didn't remember the Lauber incident from long ago, but didn't dispute that it happened. He stressed that he didn't know either student was gay.
The Republican presidential candidate had begun the day by treading softly on Mr Obama's historic embrace of same-sex marriage, which seems likely to fire up liberal and conservative activists alike. He quietly restated his opposition to legalizing such marriages, but his campaign turned its full attention to energy, the economy and other issues.
Then the boarding school story was posted online and Romney moved quickly to counter any suggestion he had targeted students because they gay.
"If there was anything I said that was offensive to someone, I certainly am sorry about that," he said, adding that "there was no harm intended." Romney's campaign has previously highlighted the candidate's reputation as a high school prankster in an attempt to humanise him.
In a second interview on Thursday, Mr Romney laid out what he said what his long-held position on gay rights: While opposed to gay marriage, he said states should be allowed to grant various domestic partnership rights to same-sex couples, including the right to adopt children.
The Republican candidate has a complicated record on gay rights, defending some when he ran for governor of Massachusetts but then becoming a leading voice against gay marriage when courts made it legal in the state.
When Mr Romney ran for Senate in 1994, he argued that he would be a better advocate for gay rights' issues than Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy because he would make gay issues mainstream. "I think the gay community needs more support from the Republican Party and I would be a voice in the Republican Party to foster anti-discrimination efforts," he said in a 1994 interview.
Meanwhile, Clooney's dinner for President Obama is expected to net close to $15 million. That's an unprecedented amount for a single event. And it means that in one single evening the Obama camp and the Democratic Party will collect more than Romney has amassed in his best single month of fundraising.
Obama also held fundraisers earlier Thursday in Seattle, where he was expected to collect at least $3 million toward his re-election effort. On Friday, he will fly to Nevada, a highly contested state, where he will call for housing relief in a speech in Reno.
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