Who kept "Design Star"'s Mikey V in the closet?

HGTV's only on-air explanation was completely unenlightening: "Mikey V," said host Clive Pearse, "is not with us tonight." Out gay designer Matt Locke, who stayed in the competition right down to the finale, told me that HGTV didn't say much more to the contestants than they did on air. "There’s one explanation that they gave," he said. "They said we could choose not to talk about it at all, or we could say that Mikey wasn’t honest on his background check."

Which is more than they told Verdugo. "They just said, 'You will not be showing up for the finale,'" he told me. "And I felt a little cheated, just for the fact that I built such a good relationship with everyone on the show. I came in fourth place, which I thought was a pretty good accomplishment; after all, over 10,000 people put in for it. And it hurt because I did want to see everyone, especially Trish. Me and her were really, really tight and she was like the sister I never had. So it was an instant bond when I met her and it was just sad not to be able to see her and recap everything with her."

Trish Beaudet

So, not only did he not win his own design show, but he's at least temporarily off the force, cut off from the Design Star reunion, and the object of lots of Internet gossip and speculation. Most people might find the whole thing a little depressing, but not Mikey.

"I’m a strong believer in everything happens for a reason," he said. "Whatever happens with the PD was meant to happen. I’ve been a cop for ten years and I do love my job, but my passion is more in designing now."

He told me that he'd already achieved most of his goals on the force. "I worked beat patrol, I was on the SWAT team for two years, I did undercover for three years," he said. "But it’s a police world. A lot of politics."

Being on HGTV, where he was a fan favorite, has also opened up new opportunities in the design field. "I’ve been getting a lot of offers, and I’m going to travel to Albuquerque and do homes out there," he told me. And in addition to the company he'd founded a few years ago, Elite Home Staging, he's also started the Verdugo Design Group, which does larger scale and commercial projects. There's discussion of a furniture line bearing his name and, most excitingly for him, some talk of a possible television project for him and Trish.

His friendships with Trish and with Matt are among the reasons that he's glad he did the show, despite the fallout. In fact, he told me, he's heading out to California next week to hang out with Matt. "He's an amazing person," Mikey said of his fellow contestant. "He really is. And here's the main thing with Matt: what you see is what you get."

Matt Locke, Mikey Verdugo
(Photo credit: Getty Images/Will Ragozzino)

But the most gratifying thing has been the fan support, especially from his gay fans. "My MySpace page got over 8,000 hits a week in messages and hundreds of emails a day," he told me. "It’s really overwhelming, the support. Nothing negative – everything is just positive… It was like in one night, it had 3,000 hits of people asking why, why and why."

Some of that support came from AfterElton.com readers. Mikey had been reading our coverage of Design Star, and said, "I just want to thank everyone for the support because like I say, it’s just been overwhelming. Especially at a time like this. It was great. It really, really was. They helped me get through it."