Reader discretion strongly advised.
For some time there has been a movement for a ‘Gay Bachelor’ series to accompany ABC’s hit shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. Be careful what you wish for.
Strapping interior designer Robert Sepulveda Jr. has been cast as the first ‘gay Bachelor’ on Finding Prince Charming which begins September 8 on the Logo TV network, which is owned by media giant Viacom. The show is a reality dating competition featuring a cast of all gay men seeking to win Sepulveda’s heart, and will be hosted by Lance Bass, the former boy band star.
But Logo TV’s inaugural Prince Charming is turning out to be a right royal embarrassing mess. For it turns out that Sepulveda once worked as an escort in Miami, where he apparently had paid sexual liaisons with multiple clients and also did porn — which you can still watch online. According to The Wrap, Logo executives now say they had no clue to Sepulveda’s porny past until midway through the show’s production.
Sepulveda has confirmed the news that was broken on several gay sites which uncovered his escorting profile on the now defunct website RentBoy.com (which the FBI shut down for being a prostitution business) and daddyreviews.com. These profiles include graphic, very NSFW pictures and videos from Sepulveda’s prostitute past.
But the new ‘Bachelor’ refused to go into detail on his history telling Huffington Post Live, ‘The past is the past. I was young and it helped through college.” He instead wants “people to focus on is who I am today as an entrepreneur, as an activist.”
He added: “The show allowed me as well to close a lot of chapters in my life that I felt a lot of guilt around, a lot of shame and a lot of things I thought I couldn’t share and express.”
Bass unsuccessfully aimed to deflect the controversy by joking, “We all have our past. I was in a boy band. I’ll admit it.”
But people are fixated on Sepulveda’s tawdry past. One allegation, via Perez Hilton, is that he discriminated against African-American men. A former client said: “He then asked me what race am I, and I told him I am an African American. Immediately after that he said he said he would call me back in a few minutes.
“I got in the shower and dressed up a little to prepare for our meeting. As it got closer and closer to 11 p.m., I never heard back from him…I have been told that he doesn’t like African American men by some of the people I met since I’ve been here.” Three of the thirteen suitors on Finding Prince Charming are black.
Other gay websites have alleged one of Sepulveda’s clients was Marc Jacobs and detailed NFSW techniques he practiced with used condoms (captured in extremely explicit videos). The websites are also showing close-up photos of Sepulveda’s genitalia, and quoting complimentary reviews by his Rentboy clients, who rave about the size of his genitals, and about their sexual encounters with him.
Logo TV has not addressed the embarrassment nor commented on its vetting process. Instead it released a statement saying: “Finding Prince Charming is a reality series about 13 people looking for Mr. Right. As in real life, the show will cover a range of topics people face when dating, from first time love to coming to terms with one’s past, fear of commitment and even HIV.
“We look forward to taking viewers on a journey of the human spirit in search of love.” It’s certainly been a journey for Sepulveda.