Arts & Entertainment
‘Big Brother’ star bares all
Former reality show competitor-turned-porn god at Secrets Friday
(Photo courtesy of Unzipped via Steven Daigle)
It’s no secret at all. Steven Daigle — the gay rodeo star whose burst of fame came on the reality-TV show “Big Brother” in 2008 — is today one of the hottest stars in the gay male adult film industry.
A top star for king-of-gay-porn Chi Chi LaRue, Steven is also winner of the GayVN award for “the most rented title” of 2010, “Steven Daigle XXXposed.”
He makes his Washington premiere appearance live and nude tonight at Secrets, “so his many fans can see him, not just on video, but this time up close and very personal — it’s a real coup for Secrets,” says the club’s promoter Jon Royce.
“Without sounding cocky,” Daigle says, “the success of that first video, ‘Steven Daigle XXXposed,’ was because of me, because I brought a mainstream name to the film, because of being on ‘Big Brother.'”
There are other signs of his popularity too. Topco Sales even sells a dildo molded from his unit.
“He came into the molding session with a great attitude and ready to do anything we asked of him in order to get the best possible mold,” says Topco’s Miranda Lancaster.
“What I go through for my fans,” Daigle says. “I hope you enjoy it.”
The replica became rather famous in August when Daigle and his then boyfriend, fellow porn star Trent Locke, appeared live on a Manhunt video chat.
Locke and Daigle unfortunately came to blows recently, and definitely not in a good way. It happened Oct. 18 at the Abbey, the West Hollywood gay bar where Steven gathered with friends for a viewing party to watch his appearance on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” the hit reality show now in its third season on the Bravo cable channel.
According to TMZ, Locke (who was named by his porn name, Ryan Purdy) approached Steven and started a fight, which turned ugly and bloody. It was Daigle, however, not Locke, who was arrested. Held by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department overnight on $20,000 bail, he was charged with one count of misdemeanor battery. Conviction means up to one year behind bars.
But there may be more to the story. Daigle’s mug shot, which TMZ posted, shows he clearly took a beating. Nevertheless TMZ reported that Locke was rushed to the hospital.
Royce says “any domestic violence is unfortunate” and when he heard the news of Steven’s arrest, he “immediately crossed him off my list for bringing him to Secrets.” But then Royce watched the news and read interviews about what happened and changed his mind.
“I decided to let the case take its course and not make any judgments based on headlines,” he says.
Locke, meanwhile, voiced remorse, saying on his website, “I love Steven Daigle and am so upset and deeply embarrassed that things happened the way they did,” expressing “so much respect” still for Daigle.
“I feel lost, confused, and afraid,” he wrote.
This is the second time Locke has accused a boyfriend of domestic violence.
Royce says that in person “Steven is genuine, not a fake nice person, but real, who will mix and mingle with his fans in the crowd, sign autographs, take pictures, and have a really good time with everybody” at Secrets tonight (which also just happens to be Royce’s birthday party). Long-time adult industry impresario Royce — a D.C. native who returned here, and runs MightyMen.com, after years spent in Los Angeles — has booked porn stars on a monthly basis for Secrets’ shows since he brought in Falcon mega-star Matthew Rush in 2009.
Rush, a biracial bodybuilder and winner of the 2010 Grabby Award for Best Versatile Performer, appeared in his first post-Falcon work in a 2009 video and photo shoot produced by Royce, who has also brought in other porn stars to Secrets, and boasts he helped discover two of the club’s current dancers, Redmond Fox and Jessie Lee.
Secrets, Royce says, is a key venue on the porn industry circuit because it is only one of three U.S. clubs that can legally feature entirely unclad performers. Another is Atlanta and in the third city, Pittsburgh, he says that the law is being changed to ban nudity there.
“So Secrets is a really great place, because porn stars like Steven can be naked,” which Royce says is what it’s all about: “You see them naked in videos, so why would you want to see them with their pants on in a club?”
It was Daigle’s shirtless appearance on the CBS TV show “Big Brother” in its 10th summer season three nights a week in 2008 when he first caught the eye of Royce, who says the show is a big favorite for gay viewers, including LaRue.
Royce claims to have never missed an episode of the series, which has 13 people on a soundstage, isolated and filmed 24/7.
Daigle competed well but was voted off the show in its third episode. He returned for the season finale and at a wrap party he met LaRue, who almost immediately laid out an open invitation for Steven to begin appearing in gay porn videos.
In fact Steven’s mainstream appeal, partly due to his cowboy looks as a gay rodeo bull-riding champion, begins with his all-American-boy rearing in small-town Opelousas in south-central Louisiana.
Born in 1973, at age 8 he moved with his parents to the outskirts of Houston, where he lived at home for a time after high school working odd jobs including a stint in environmental clean-up work. At 21, he began to appear in rodeos “just as a hobby,” he says, “for fun on weekends.” He soon was riding bulls and appearing in rodeos in other cities.
Only at age 26 did he start his undergraduate study, earning a degree in agriculture and marketing at the city’s Sam Houston State University. Next he completed his master’s in applied geography at the University of North Texas in Denton, a college town near Dallas, after moving there and coming out at age 30. He soon discovered the world of gay rodeo with friends.
He owned a horse and was a natural in the saddle and at riding bulls bareback. Soon he was ranked No. 1 in bull riding and also won an international steer-riding competition. That’s when “Big Brother” producers asked the gay rodeo association to recommend someone to join the cast of 13 in the 2008 production. In the year that followed his appearance on the show he continued to work as a geographic information systems analyst for a large engineering firm with offices in Dallas. But LaRue’s offer to work in gay porn – and her motto, “save a horse, ride a cowboy” – was still in the back of his mind.
He knew that drag diva and porn promoter LaRue (AKA Larry David Paciotti), director of all-time gay-sex video best-sellers and the owner of her own production company Channel 1 Releasing, could make things happen. Inducted into the GayVN Hall of Fame, in 2008 she also opened her adult boutique, Chi Chi LaRue’s, on Santa Monica Boulevard in the heart of West Hollywood, where she sells everything from 2,000 video titles to sex toys and candles.
“We were friends,” Daigle says, “and she wasn’t bugging me, and at first it was just a joke, but then I thought my job might be ending, since the economy was so hard and lay-offs were impending, so I called and asked her ‘Are you serious about this?’ and she said yes.”
So they negotiated a deal and he shot three videos.
LaRue called “XXXposed,” “the high point in my directing. Steven took to being watched like a seasoned pro.”
In the second video, “Steven Daigle Stalked,” he is stalked by Grabby (adult video awards) winner Adam Killian “into a dungeon,” Daigle says, “and we have a big orgy that begins as a three-way and then a lot more guys join in,” this time letting Daigle show his video versatility. Since then he has appeared in more than 30 scenes for different DVDs and on Internet sites, most recently for Chi Chi LaRue in “Raising The Bar,” which he describes as a web series with nine episodes about five friends who get together every week for a new episode and have sex with each other and with others who join in. Go to HYPERLINK “http://stevenexposed.com/”stevenexposed.com for more information.
He’s single now and lives in San Diego, but travels widely having made appearances and shot scenes in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale, Phoenix, Toronto and London. He’s looking forward to Secrets and says club events are fun.
“It’s the opportunity to meet my fans and hang out with them, sign autographs and show people that you’re a real person,” he says. “They’re the reason we exist, because if it weren’t for our fans we wouldn’t be making movies.”
For Royce, this is a potential money-shot for Secrets but also a chance for Daigle’s fans to connect with him in person.
“He is a big prize for the gay male porn industry, one of the most high-profile in the business, and he has the smarts to do what it takes in this industry,” Royce says.
“You don’t do 30 videos unless you’re a hot commodity,” Royce says. “The public speaks and Steven has come out a winner.”
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington perform “The Holiday Show” at Lincoln Theatre (1215 U St., N.W.). Visit gmcw.org for tickets and showtimes.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Santa will be very relieved.
You’ve taken most of the burden off him by making a list and checking it twice on his behalf. The gift-buying in your house is almost done – except for those few people who are just so darn hard to buy for. So what do you give to the person who has (almost) everything? You give them a good book, like maybe one of these.
Memoir and biography
The person who loves digging into a multi-level memoir will be happy unwrapping “Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama” by Alexis Okeowo (Henry Holt). It’s a memoir about growing up Black in what was once practically ground zero for the Confederacy. It’s about inequality, it busts stereotypes, and yet it still oozes love of place. You can’t go wrong if you wrap it up with “Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore” by Ashley D. Farmer (Pantheon). It’s a chunky book with a memoir with meaning and plenty of thought.
For the giftee on your list who loves to laugh, wrap up “In My Remaining Years” by Jean Grae (Flatiron Books). It’s part memoir, part comedy, a look back at the late-last-century, part how-did-you-get-to-middle-age-already? and all fun. Wrap it up with “Here We Go: Lessons for Living Fearlessly from Two Traveling Nanas” by Eleanor Hamby and Dr. Sandra Hazellip with Elisa Petrini (Viking). It’s about the adventures of two 80-something best friends who seize life by the horns – something your giftee should do, too.
If there’ll be someone at your holiday table who’s finally coming home this year, wrap up “How I Found Myself in the Midwest” by Steve Grove (Simon & Schuster). It’s the story of a Silicon Valley worker who gives up his job and moves with his family to Minnesota, which was once home to him. That was around the time the pandemic hit, George Floyd was murdered, and life in general had been thrown into chaos. How does someone reconcile what was with what is now? Pair it with “Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America” by Will Bardenwerper (Doubleday). It’s set in New York and but isn’t that small-town feel universal, no matter where it comes from?
Won’t the adventurer on your list be happy when they unwrap “I Live Underwater” by Max Gene Nohl (University of Wisconsin Press)? They will, when they realize that this book is by a former deep-sea diver, treasure hunter, and all-around daredevil who changed the way we look for things under water. Nohl died more than 60 years ago, but his never-before-published memoir is fresh and relevant and will be a fun read for the right person.
If celeb bios are your giftee’s thing, then look for “The Luckiest” by Kelly Cervantes (BenBella Books). It’s the Midwest-to-New-York-City story of an actress and her life, her marriage, and what she did when tragedy hit. Filled with grace, it’s a winner.
Your music lover won’t want to open any other gifts if you give “Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur” by Jeff Pearlman (Mariner Books). It’s the story of the life, death, and everything in-between about this iconic performer, including the mythology that he left behind. Has it been three decades since Tupac died? It has, but your music lover never forgets. Wrap it up with “Point Blank (Quick Studies)” by Bob Dylan, text by Eddie Gorodetsky, Lucy Sante, and Jackie Hamilton (Simon & Schuster), a book of Dylan’s drawings and artwork. This is a very nice coffee-table size book that will be absolutely perfect for fans of the great singer and for folks who love art.
For the giftee who’s concerned with their fellow man, “The Lost and the Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found Family and Second Chances” by Kevin Fagan (One Signal / Atria) may be the book to give. It’s a story of two “unhoused” people in San Francisco, one of the country’s wealthiest cities, and their struggles. There’s hope in this book, but also trouble and your giftee will love it.
For the person on your list who suffered loss this year, give “Pine Melody” by Stacey Meadows (Independently Published), a memoir of loss, grief, and healing while remembering the person gone.
LGBTQ fiction
For the mystery lover who wants something different, try “Crime Ink: Iconic,” edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West (Bywater Books), a collection of short stories inspired by “queer legends” and allies you know. Psychological thrillers, creepy crime, cozies, they’re here.
Novel lovers will want to curl up this winter with “Middle Spoon” by Alejandro Varela (Viking), a book about a man who appears to have it all, until his heart is broken and the fix for it is one he doesn’t quite understand and neither does anyone he loves.
LGBTQ studies – nonfiction
For the young man who’s struggling with issues of gender, “Before They Were Men” by Jacob Tobia (Harmony Books) might be a good gift this year. These essays on manhood in today’s world works to widen our conversations on the role politics and feminism play in understanding masculinity and how it’s time we open our minds.
If there’s someone on your gift list who had a tough growing-up (didn’t we all?), then wrap up “I’m Prancing as Fast as I Can” by Jon Kinnally (Permuted Press / Simon & Schuster). Kinnally was once an awkward kid but he grew up to be a writer for TV shows you’ll recognize. You can’t go wrong gifting a story like that. Better idea: wrap it up with “So Gay for You: Friendship, Found Family, & The Show That Started It All” by Leisha Hailey & Kate Moennig (St. Martin’s Press), a book about a little TV show that launched a BFF-ship.
Who doesn’t have a giftee who loves music? You sure do, so wrap up “The Secret Public: How Music Moved Queer Culture from the Margins to the Mainstream” by Jon Savage (Liveright). Nobody has to tell your giftee that queer folk left their mark on music, but they’ll love reading the stories in this book and knowing what they didn’t know.
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Theater
Studio’s ‘Mother Play’ draws from lesbian playwright’s past
A poignant memory piece laced with sadness and wry laughs
‘The Mother Play’
Through Jan. 4
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St., N.W.
$42 – $112
Studiotheatre.org
“The Mother Play” isn’t the first work by Pulitzer Prize-winning lesbian playwright Paula Vogel that draws from her past. It’s just the most recent.
Currently enjoying an extended run at Studio Theatre, “The Mother Play,” (also known as “The Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions,” or more simply, “Mother Play”) is a 90-minute powerful and poignant memory piece laced with sadness and wry laughs.
The mother in question is Phyllis Herman (played exquisitely by Kate Eastwood Norris), a divorced government secretary bringing up two children under difficult circumstances. When we meet them it’s 1964 and the family is living in a depressing subterranean apartment adjacent to the building’s trash room.
Phyllis isn’t exactly cut out for single motherhood; an alcoholic chain-smoker with two gay offspring, Carl and Martha, both in their early teens, she seems beyond her depth.
In spite (or because of) the challenges, things are never dull in the Herman home. Phyllis is warring with landlords, drinking, or involved in some other domestic intrigue. At the same time, Carl is glued to books by authors like Jane Austen, and queer novelist Lytton Strachey, while Martha is charged with topping off mother’s drinks, not a mean feat.
Despite having an emotionally and physically withholding parent, adolescent Martha is finding her way. Fortunately, she has nurturing older brother Carl (the excellent Stanley Bahorek) who introduces her to queer classics like “The Well of Loneliness” by Radclyffe Hall, and encourages Martha to pursue lofty learning goals.
Zoe Mann’s Martha is just how you might imagine the young Vogel – bright, searching, and a tad awkward.
As the play moves through the decades, Martha becomes an increasingly confident young lesbian before sliding comfortably into early middle age. Over time, her attitude toward her mother becomes more sympathetic. It’s a convincing and pleasing performance.
Phyllis is big on appearances, mainly her own. She has good taste and a sharp eye for thrift store and Goodwill finds including Chanel or a Von Furstenberg wrap dress (which looks smashing on Eastwood Norris, by the way), crowned with the blonde wig of the moment.
Time and place figure heavily into Vogel’s play. The setting is specific: “A series of apartments in Prince George’s and Montgomery County from 1964 to the 21st century, from subbasement custodial units that would now be Section 8 housing to 3-bedroom units.”
Krit Robinson’s cunning set allows for quick costume and prop changes as decades seamlessly move from one to the next. And if by magic, projection designer Shawn Boyle periodically covers the walls with scurrying roaches, a persistent problem for these renters.
Margot Bordelon directs with sensitivity and nuance. Her take on Vogel’s tragicomedy hits all the marks.
Near the play’s end, there’s a scene sometimes referred to as “The Phyllis Ballet.” Here, mother sits onstage silently in front of her dressing table mirror. She is removed of artifice and oozes a mixture of vulnerability but not without some strength. It’s longish for a wordless scene, but Bordelon has paced it perfectly.
When Martha arranges a night of family fun with mom and now out and proud brother at Lost and Found (the legendary D.C. gay disco), the plan backfires spectacularly. Not long after, Phyllis’ desire for outside approval resurfaces tenfold, evidenced by extreme discomfort when Carl, her favorite child, becomes visibly ill with HIV/AIDS symptoms.
Other semi-autobiographical plays from the DMV native’s oeuvre include “The Baltimore Waltz,” a darkly funny, yet moving piece written in memory of her brother (Carl Vogel), who died of AIDS in 1988. The playwright additionally wrote “How I Learned to Drive,” an acclaimed play heavily inspired by her own experiences with sexual abuse as a teenager.
“The Mother Play” made its debut on Broadway in 2024, featuring Jessica Lange in the eponymous role, earning her a Tony Award nomination.
Like other real-life matriarch inspired characters (Mary Tyrone, Amanda Wingfield, Violet Weston to name a few) Phyllis Herman seems poised to join that pantheon of complicated, women.
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