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The Night Greg Gutfeld Lost His Date

I'd hoped to leave Greg Gutfeld out of this story about partner-swapping by men's magazine veterans. But then the belligerent gay-baiting (and often funny) host of Fox News' late-night Red Eye, a Bill O'Reilly in training, decided to pick a fight with Gawker's commenters. Controversialist Gutfeld, fired from Stuff and Maxim's UK edition before he became host of the faltering Red Eye, wants an attention-grabbing mudfight. This website exists for no more noble purpose. So, here's the story of Gutfeld's disastrous double date with a fellow editor. (The video clip, of Gutfeld defending sex with hookers, is merely for illustration.)

After a hard day covering Fashion Week, in September 2006, Gutfeld was at Port 41 with a group of other magazine editors and writers. It was late, Gutfeld had been drinking, and he's not known for his discretion even when sober. According to one of the many present that evening, he began regaling the crowd with an account of a small dinner party hosted by Steve Perrine, former creative director of Men's Health, now editor-in-chief of Best Life, a magazine for middle-aged men who lead lives of silent desperation.

Now Perrine himself does not. In the past, at least, he's talked quite openly of his swinger's lifestyle and even alludes to it in interviews. Here's a podcast interview with Personal Life Media. "I’m leaving the party, I get my balls, I pick up some other guy’s balls. I get home, they don’t fit. I’ve got to call him up, 'I think I have your balls!' So that’s always difficult." Hmm, well, he's alluding to something there, anyway.

So, according to Gutfeld, he and a date went round to Perrine's for dinner a few years ago. Steve Perrine, who later became an expert on acrimonious divorces and child-custody disputes, was still with his first wife. The party was just the four of them. Gutfeld claimed he had no particular idea of the evening's agenda, but the dinner ended with his date in bed with Perrine, while the Red Eye opinionator was left with his host's wife. She was so upset, at the situation or Gutfeld's reluctance to exercise his partner-swapping rights, that the macho former magazine editor spent the evening sitting on a log, consoling the sobbing woman.

Now this tale, several years old, has probably been distorted both in Gutfeld's telling, and the subsequent retelling as it's made its way around the magazine world. It's no wonder the story is so confusing.

Assuming it's partly true, why on earth would Gutfeld allow his date to go off with the predatory Perrine when he didn't want reciprocation? And, even if wildly exaggerated, why would Gutfeld, a man who has traded on a reputation as one of the few red-blooded heterosexuals in media, tell a story which makes him look an impotent cuckold? There's only one explanation: late at night, at a bar or on his TV show, Gutfeld will say literally anything to get attention.

3:03 PM on Thu Apr 24 2008
By Nick Denton
5,943 views
93 comments

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