A former reality show contestant in Russia is suing a tabloid newspaper and a gay website over claims that he is gay and worked as a prostitute, marking what is believed to be the first case in the country concerned with gay allegations, reports The Moscow Times .
Vasily Pechen, who competed on the Russian version of Big Brother and the show Dom-2 on the TNT network, claims that he was denied jobs after Express Gazeta published a report in 2005, with revealing photos, alleging that men paid him for sex in a Moscow gay club. Pechen says professional damage continued when the same information was repeated by the website Gay.ru.
Pechen, 28, also alleged that the death of his mother from cancer was directly linked to her shock at seeing the reports about her son. He seeks the publication of retractions and about $120,000 in damages.
Unable to further pursue his show business dreams, he now blogs about village life in the southwestern Voronezh region.
Ed Mishin, the owner of the Gay.ru website, dismissed Pechen’s claims as “nonsense” to The Moscow Times, and suggested that Pechen is motivated by a desire to obtain fame.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for September 8.
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