Profiles of Smith from the Observer and New York magazine have hinted at his sexuality in the past, but they've both been reluctant to come right out and say he's gay. But the anchor's new profile on Cityfile sums it up thusly:

Smith has repeatedly dodged the question of his sexuality, but in 2005 he was outed in a column in the Washington Blade. Kevin Naff, the managing editor of the gay weekly, said that Smith "chatted me up in a New York City gay piano bar, bought me drinks, and invited me back to his place." He lives in a two-bedroom West Village loft that he purchased for $1.87 million in 2004. Fashion designer (and fellow gay) Michael Kors lives in the same building.

Fox News has, essentially, a ready-made conservative counterpart for Anderson Cooper just waiting to be promoted correctly. Having Smith as the face of the network could go a long way towards imbuing it with a slightly more open image—a hint of progressivism, with all the staid respectability that the middle American audience expects in its newsmen. And once Obama is elected and the backlash against the Bush years begins in earnest, Fox News will need someone less harsh than Bill O'Reilly to make peace with the national mood.

It is, in all seriousness, a fine idea. Fox News should give it some consideration.

[Huffpo, CityFile, Previously]

The NY Press apparently procured and read Seymour's actual book—the only excerpt we can find online talks exclusively about him walking around with his dick out in a strip club. But the Press has the Drudge-y highlights:

According to Seymour: "Matthew and I were primarily obsessed with two things: music and The The Young and the Restless. That's all we talked about as we walked around D.C. late at night or drove out to the Maryland suburbs where his mother worked behind the counter at 7-Eleven."...

After Seymour gets thrown out of his NYC apartment, he loses touch with Matthew until he receives a letter in the mail. It deserves to be excerpted in full from Seymour's chapter:

"'If this letter gets to you somewhere in this burning world,' he opened, 'I have a feeling you can still relate.' For five densely marked pages, Matthew revisited all of our favorite topics of conversation, telling me how he was awaiting a new Frankie Knuckles remix of Chaka Khan's 'Ain't Nobody,' going through a love/hate relationship with Whitney Houston's 'One Moment in Time,' and incensed over the direction of The Young and the Restless.

('That show suffered so much during the writers' strike—will it ever rebound?') Later, he stated: 'Writing this letter to you makes me happy. Whatever happened to us? I miss talking to you, but somehow I know what you're thinking or want to convince myself that I know.'

At the end of the letter, he wrote: '213 area code soon. Call me.'"

Seymour never heard anything further from Matthew, until, years later, when he was flipping through Vanity Fair and happened upon a photo of his long-forgotten friend. He'd transformed himself into Internet pundit Matt Drudge.

Nilla.

[NY Press]

"I'm going home to jerk off to you now." Aww/eww. A tipster tells us that Avery added "And that's a big compliment," and later text messaged Kirschbaum saying that "the session is going well." So yes! A little creepy, but at least he's not been completely be-sassed by the sleek and bitchy fashion industry. Though it could all be an elaborate ruse and he really went back to his hotel to drink Moët and do blow all night with Tom Ford while Anna Wintour did slow 70's disco claps in the background, Carly Simon playing softly. If that's the case then boo, but if he really was practicing his stick-handling skills then good on him. I hope he had a steak afterwards.

And if people are confused about Wentz's sexuality, he deserves at least half the credit for that too. Onstage he'll lick a stripe up the neck of his bass or his bandmates' guitars. He hooks his chin over singer Patrick Stump's shoulder, mouthing his own words against Stump's cheek. When they covered the Killers' "Mr. Brightside" on a recent tour, he would punctuate the line "it was only a kiss" by aiming with varying success somewhere in the vicinity of Stump's mouth. In "Sugar" he boasts of "always sleeping in and sleeping for the wrong team"; the line "He tastes like you, only sweeter" in "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs" paraphrases what's spoken by a female character in the play and (by Julia Roberts) in the movie Closer. It loses any jealous, alpha-male edge when repeated over and over as the song's key emotional refrain. Eventually, I point out to him, it just sounds, well, gay.

"It is pretty gay," Wentz easily agrees, grinning as we discuss how the crowd still sings right along. "A big portion of our fan base are these white-hat jock dudes who maybe actually have some kind of homoerotic behaviors," he says. "They're so violent — but they feel pretty free at Fall Out Boy shows." So does he: "It's all because I know I'm going to get a reaction — but it's all things that I believe anyway. I don't get on stage and give a social diatribe. I am a performer and an entertainer."

He doesn't seem to think he has much to prove to Out, and I ask a lot of follow-up questions. Wentz answers them all, even when he's not sure I'll like the answers. "When I said that I make out with dudes, there was a slight sense of sexual rebellion in that," he admits. "And I probably even made it a bigger deal than it was." He thinks the first time he kissed a guy was when he was 16 or 17, probably on a dare at a party: "Like, 'You make out with this dude and we'll make out.' " And of later experiments, at 18 or 19, he says it was more like, "I'm going to try this thing." And most recently? He actually apologizes before responding. "A long time ago," he says with a slight wince. "Probably when I was 22?"

He has no qualms talking about his attraction to men (including a big, stupid crush on John Mayer), which still puts him on a very short list of famous young male musicians and actors who haven't been convinced that confession is in and of itself a career killer. But as he said in The Advocate in 2007, the stopping point truly does come when the action strays below the belt. "It's really about the equipment," he tells me, gesturing at his crotch with a grimace. (Decide for yourself: The first unfiltered hit for an image search on Wentz's name still yields the shots he took of his equipment in hand, which leaked from his Sidekick in 2006.) "I really don't think it's an attractive quality. That's what it comes down to. I don't even like my own. Like, I really don't like it. I don't like anything about it."

Sadly, it didn't. Also, the Department of the Interior claimed such arrests never happened; that assertion was "happily quoted" by gay magazines. Meanwhile:

So out in the Meat Rack, the federal forest between Cherry Grove and the Pines, I met a man who described his "flavor" as "Blatino" and who suggested, unprompted, for himself the pseudonym of "Max." He reported that he had seen a timid, anxious three-way taking place in the bushes that afternoon and not much else—but that the Meat Rack had, last night in the wee hours, been hopping. No one expected the park rangers to have the budget for night patrols.

...And the following day, Sunday, things were pretty quiet; no cops of any stripe. Everyone had heard that the new park rangers put on staff at the Fire Island National Seashore had been informed by their superiors that arresting gay men for lewd behavior was not a priority here. How that might have been put to them was not explained.

Promises In the Park [Radar]

I wanted to contact you today and see if Gawker would be able to run a story about a hate crime that occurred early Wednesday morning at the trendy NYC nightclub 1 Oak which is owned by Richie Akiva and Scott Sartiano (dated Ashley Olsen, and Jamie Lynn Siegler) -

Early Wednesday morning (June 18th, 2008) at approximately 2:30AM - two individuals were attacked by a man inside 1 OAK. and were called "faggots" - victim number 1 had to be rushed to the hospital due to massive blood loss. Victim number 2 had no visible wounds at the time.

Victim number 1's friend wanted to call 911, however the two owners of the nightclub, Sartiano and Akiva, told the friend NOT TO. 911 was called regardless. The club owners then wanted to rush the victim into a car when they knew the ambulance was coming. A minute goes by and the attacker was able to walk right out of the club, without security questioning or anyone's interference, even after the victim's friend screamed out "that's the guy!"

The attacker turns out to be someone that frequents the club often and knew the doorman and the staff, since he was able to walk right into the club and said hello to the doorman in the beginning of the night. When questioned, the owners claimed to not know who the attacker was, and provided no information.

Victim number 1 ended up with 5 stitches, a broken nose, busted upper and lower lips, and lacerations around the face. Victim number 2 suffered from acute migraines due to an attack to the back of the head. A police report was filed the next day. However the club owners did not seem concerned, and did not supply the name of the attacker and did not phone the victim to follow up on the progress or the status.

The owners of the club did not seem to care for what happened within their club, and only was concerned that the police was not informed and no press comes out of this, they wanted to retain their public image.

From 1 Oak's PR firm, Shadow PR:

Unfortunately, the situation that occurred at 1OAK was out of the establishment's control. 1OAK is cooperating fully with the necessary parties and hope the matter is resolved immediately. This inappropriate behavior is not acceptable and will not be tolerated.

[Interior pic via Men.Style.com]

Few details are known—the National Park Service has not yet confirmed the arrests or said why they have now begun patrolling the land. On the weekend of Friday, June 13, at least one gay man was detained in the small wooded area popularly called The Meat Rack, which is both a cruising ground and also a thoroughfare between the two gay towns of Fire Island, Cherry Grove and The Pines. The following weekend, at least two were arrested.

This coming Saturday, June 28, one Cherry Grove resident is proposing—via posters around the towns—a day of action, what he is calling "a circle jerk for freedom" around the park service's (abandoned) building in the Meat Rack at the edge of the Pines.

Well, OK, maybe not, but it's still pretty cool. I guess his womanizing characters on HIMYM and in the Harold and Kumar movies (in which he talks about wanting some "fur burgers") tell advertisers that even though he's gay, he's still cool to peddle men's anti-stink products. And, heck, in a bit of an ouroboros, maybe he gets to play such rakes because he's gay. "It's OK ladies, he's not really like that. But, hey men, he could be." Acting!

Harold and Kumar clip below. NSFW!

Elle, you'll recall, boasts a creative director named Joe Zee, a free-spending man who hired his "rumored paramour," Keith Pollock, to head the magazine's website. That move didn't appear to be motivated by business sense, given Pollock's background in retail. But Pollock couldn't hang on forever with only Zee's support; he recently left the magazine (at about the same time as Hachette boss Jack Kliger, whose legacy wasn't helped much by Elle's recent performance).

Pollock, we hear, may have landed a job with the production company of Stylista, the new reality show starring Elle fashion news director Anne Slowey. But the magazine he left behind continues to wrestle with how to successfully establish itself online—and how to retain its traditional audience in print.

So could Zee's overt gayness be pulling the magazine's style so far away from the heterosexual side of the spectrum that it's turning off straight female readers? An Elle spokesperson says that in his role as creative director, Zee does "everything from styling, editing, working with the Art Dept, etc." But she says that his input on major decisions like cover choices is just one of "dozens" of voices.

But another insider characterizes the covers as "all Zee's doing." The truth is likely somewhere in between, but there's no question Zee is a major driving force in the magazine's look.

So with Kliger out, Pollock gone, and the magazine in a shaky position, could Zee's job be on the line as well—because he has made Elle TOO GAY? Probably not, really. But you be the judge:

TedSez's new line beats the original, Sunday in the Park With Georgia Rule.

Hey guys,

I just read your article about Rob Shuter and I have my own story on this guy that you might find interesting, useful or not.

I met him first at a party where he told me he wanted to talk business. He came over to my apartment several days later and after a few minutes, I understood that it was nothing about business, the guy was just horny. Nevertheless, he went into a long "proposal" to work on the project with me and Naomi Campbell which would be "groundbreaking." I am a very ambitious person, but I am also realistic so I didn't even listen and was thinking of how to get rid of the liar. When the guy made a move, I very politely declined.

Since then, this guy has done everything in his power to make me suffer for that.

I was always a guest at Heatherette show but I am no longer welcomed any longer. Lately, I found out that this was Rob's doing. Apparently, he has or had something to do with Heatherette's people.

During another fashion week, I was a guest of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and was sitting in the first row for the Huricane Relief fashion show. The next day, there was an article in Page Six accusing me of "hiding under a makeup table backstage for hours to get in." When I asked someone I knew at the New York Post how such an article could come about, he told me that all information was provided by Rob Shuter. Indeed, I was behind the stage that night, but not to sit under the makeup table. I had a very good time socializing with Carmen Dell'Orefice (who I later had a photoshoot with for Korean GQ), Timothy Sanders, and others. I also saw Rob, who came over to me and told me that he was Naomi Campbell's manager and that she would like to take a picture with me. He brought me to her table where she was giving interviews while getting her hair done and told me to wait. After 30 minutes of waiting, I decided to go back to my seat, as the show was about the start. Mr. Shuter was just enjoying my waiting while he knew the picture with Naomi Campbell would never happen. He just kept saying, "Michael, just another minute!"

I rarely meet such a vicious person as Rob Shuter who put so much energy toward making others miserable. And with his looks, shouldn't he be used to rejection?

[via Queerty, which also has video of O'Reilly whining]

"What?! No, I couldn't possibly. 'Make it work' comes with me. I've been saying it for decades," he tells The Cut. Phew. We are very apprehensive about this upcoming Lifetime/LA move, but as long as whimsical Tim is still puttering around, saying comforting things, I think we might be OK. Do any of our LA readers want to offer their services as a chauffeur? I'm sure he'll pay you back in titillating anecdotes about the New York glitterati and perfectly placed bon mots.

The email, excerpted for time and sanity (full thing can be read here):

I'm sure your story is based on emails sent from someone who hacked into my gmail and forwarded emails (mostly doctored) to an anonymous yahoo account (gaydavidvid@yahoo.com), and also hacked into my facebook and wrote a string of graphic, disgusting, and damaging emails to specific individuals. The self-same person had interactions via my gmail with people who assumed it was me writing. I am not perfect—I've made mistakes, but the extent and depth of the perpertrator's obsession with discrediting me has led him or her to severely alter the truth.

There is no story or article forthcoming about Kristian. Unfortunately!

I know for a fact that the people behind this sinister prank will be revealed in as little as two weeks time. They made a lot of stupid mistakes—logging in from a private computer, sending information to people that I never knew, talking about events that I was out of the country for, etc. I really don't want you to be involved with hindering a criminal and legal investigation—which I think your baseless article will be doing. I'm sure you have some fantastic pull quotes from unscrupulous editors or people that I have never been friends with—-but again, they mean nothing in the face of the fact that someone HACKED into my gmail and facebook and manipulated and twisted information.

I readily admit I've made mistakes. I was naive to trust people like you when I moved to New York. I didn't understand the toxic nature that defines the very insulated social world that I work in. At this point and time however, I know who my real friends are, I love my job and my family and I have very little time for anything other than those three major components of my life. Your suggestions of me air kissing those who hate me are so off base it's laughable. I'm a germophobic and notoriously shy. I rarely approach someone unless I'm introduced to them—although I'd probably make an exception for David Beckham :).

Oh, come on. David Beckham aside, anyone who's met Laliberte will tell you that he's quite touchy-kissy. Even if they haven't been disinfected first!

If you knew me even a little, you know that I've kept my friends I've had since day one in this city except for two people, one of whom has written an expose betraying all those he/she used to work with (and is writing a follow up about the very "socials" she/he befriended) and the other who's severe drug problems, thievery, rampant stds, and bulemia forced me to cut off the friendship.

BLIND ITEM ALERT!! Which one of Laliberte's ex-friends has bulimia, "rampant" STDs, and a "thievery" problem? And who mentions that kind of detail in an email to a frenemy?

I am not sure about writing freelance, but starting a clothing and a pr firm takes so much time that by the time I'm out I'm just there to spend time with my friends, not gossip about them. I know personal information that about people. If I had been a "rat" that information would have long been known. The fact that I still have the same friends that I had when I graduated Columbia in 2005 says alot.

That is three whole years, people.

Please just leave me alone . I don't know if your homophobic or what—but its starting to creep me out.

Hah! They usually accuse him of being gay, actually.

Your investigative campaign is hurtful in the extreme. Stop emailing my friends about me. Stop writing about me. Stop thinking about me. Just leave. me. alone.

Thanks so much for your time,

I hope this email may have somewhat illuminated your clarity of what you are attempting to write about.

Best,

Kristian

Oh, Kristian. You really gotta outsource your own personal PR instead of handling it yourself. This is not helping!

[via Multicult Classics]

E-mail from Karp's Tumblr. And don't even get us started on Forman's business card.

The city has shut down all but two bathhouses and every known sex club in Manhattan, as well as citing bars, clubs, and private parties where inspectors find any men-on-men action. The few entrepreneurs still out there complain about apathy and different priorities among younger gay men.

"These things are ending because people don't want them anymore," [naughty-party organizer Daniel Nardicio] says. "People are spoiled, petulant, uninteresting. I've been throwing outrageous parties again and again for years, but the only time I was busted was at the Slide."

Other theories posited for the steep decline of raunchy sex parties: gays fighting for their right to marry and serve openly in the military rather than party, coming out is "easier than ever" (is it??), and gays are not as "marginalized" in society.

Maybe everyone should spend the next few years working on their careers, until the pendulum inevitably swings back in the other direction.

Village Voice

[Village Voice cover outtake by Nikola Tamindzic of Home of the Vain]

Today's story—"Gay Couples Find Marriage Is a Mixed Bag"— points out that "while nearly half of straight people marrying are under 30, more same-sex married couples of both sexes are older — nearly a third are in their 40s." (And that figure includes lesbians, we are pretty sure!)

Anyway it's sort of an about-face by the Times except of course that one was a subjective Sunday Magazine piece based on anecdotes and this is a researched news story based on statistics and anecdotes.

Of course one would expect marriages to level off after the boom of long-standing couples tying the knot immediately following legal recognition of their unions. And those couples would be older, so one would also expect the percentage of gay marriages involving young gays to rise after that. But it doesn't look like that is the case in Massachusetts? We need a newsy trend piece to square the contradictions between these pieces. Or, you know, more stories about gay wedding cakes or something in Thursday Styles.

[via Multicult Classics]

"Before it came out, everyone was still a little apprehensive about [same sex relationships]," she said. "Then they realized, 'Wow, everyone is really into this stuff, and it is fine.' The next thing you know, [gay marriage] is legal." Oh, yes. It's true. Everyone was all "what's up with gays? Gross." And then they saw that lady who looks vaguely diseased chugging blue Curaçao and then making out with that other girl who looks definitely diseased and they thought "wow man. The homosexuals and the lesbians are all right. Come, to state congress. Let's do something for/about these Tila Tequila gays." That is exactly what happened. That's just history. It has nothing to do with a slow and difficult ideological evolution, which is nowhere near done, that is built upon the shoulders of courageous and selfless people who've spent their whole lives grasping and fighting for tiny inches of territory. No, it has nothing to do with them. It has to do with Tila Tequila. Good work, sister!

Ms. Decker, 27, one of the movie’s directors, seemed a little embarrassed by her own limited experience.

“The sad thing is, I desperately need to get with a girl,” she said, adding that a few stolen kisses was all she could count on the female side of her sexual ledger. “I just didn’t want it to be some random woman.”

At least Decker is honest about her "desperate" attempt to jump on a trend. Given the tenor of the launch party for her documentary, it would have been hard for her to bill the film as a serious examination of female sexuality:

At the after-party for the screening, at Vlada on West 51st Street, the culture seemed to be shifting in several directions simultaneously. A woman in Ziggy Stardust makeup, wearing a prosthesis cast from a man’s penis, participated in a simulated sex act. A while later, the woman, Amy Ouzoonian, a dancer and performance artist, made out on a couch with a mannish woman in a black suit.

The documentary apparently does throw out some mildly interesting facts as it retreads the old idea that women, like men, tend to find women more stimulating to look at.

What really matters to women, Dr. Chivers said, at least in the somewhat artificial setting of watching movies while intimately hooked up to a device called a photoplethysmograph, is not the gender of the actor, but the degree of sensuality. Even more than the naked exercisers, they were aroused by videos of masturbation, and more still by graphic videos of couples making love. Women with women, men with men, men with women: it did not seem to matter much to her female subjects, Dr. Chivers said.

“Women physically don’t seem to differentiate between genders in their sex responses, at least heterosexual women don’t,” she said. “For heterosexual women, gender didn’t matter. They responded to the level of activity.”

So, generally-straight women like watch women masturbating and having lesbian sex. Interesting. Someone should do a study on the sexual appeal of a video of two disingenuous women going through the motions of a lesbian fling and then rushing to exploit the affair for cash and/or bragging rights. Who knows, maybe that'll still be hot! And bankable.

[Times]