Interview with JD Jordan and Jesse Brune

AE: Jesse, when your weight became an issue last season, what was it like to be singled out that way on national television when your body isn't even bad?
JB: [laughs] Um, here's the deal with that. We get the episodes a couple days before they air so we can write blogs and stuff about them, and I remember watching that and hearing the sound of the toilet flush, and in that toilet was my social life. [laughs] I mean, a young gay man called out for being fat, and not just fat, but every hateful, horrible thing you can imagine. I was like, "Oh my God!" And I remember right before we were going to start filming the first day, the producer told me, "Oh, and we're going to talk about your weight issue." I was just like, "What issue? What weight problem? What are you talking about?" And then they're like, "Um... Action!"

It just became something that was out of my control. It was hard. It was really hard to see that. Every insecurity that you can have physically came to the surface and I carried it around for a long time. Now, looking back at it, I have to say I'm grateful for it. I had such an eye-opening experience. When I do things, I do things big, so when I get an eye-opening experience it's on national television, I guess.

At the base of it, I made a commitment to myself to become happy … And because I was able to be happy, I attracted a lot of positive things to my life. I attracted a very loving partner into my life. A lot of my friends fell out of my life, but old friends resurfaced and new friends showed up. For the first time in a long time, I can honestly say that I feel really happy. There's still a lot of work to do, every day is a process, but I feel like a different person.

AE: Did you hear from other gay men who don’t have perfect bodies and who sympathized?
JB: No, unfortunately ... Here's the thing. I did hear from a few saying thank you, and oddly enough, after season two my business really, really grew. It really expanded. But, unfortunately, I hate saying this, I heard more negative responses than positive ones. But I suppose I just heard the brunt of what was said on the Internet, it would get back to me. That people would take the time to actually do that ... Just because I gained weight, I got death threats and hate mail.

AE: Really?
JB: Yeah. It was really awful … Occasionally, I would hear someone say, "Thank you." I remember this one time, I was at the gym — not Sky Sport, I was at another gym working out — and somebody came up to me with tears in his eyes because he was really emotional, and he said, "I want you to know that I gained a lot of weight because I was really depressed this year. I felt really gross in my body. I felt really uncomfortable. After seeing you stand up for yourself and do your own thing, you really, really inspired me and I just want to say thank you for killing the stereotype of what a gay man should be." And I was like, "That was really touching and moving. Now I'm going to go do my cardio." [laughs]

I always feel like if you have extra weight, but you're happy with yourself and you love yourself? Good for you! Rock it! But if you're fat and you don't feel good about yourself, then that's when it's time to examine something else. There's a lot of pressure on gay men to have this perfect body and that's not always easy to attain. I think a lot of people mistake healthy and sexy. A lot of time sexy isn't healthy. There's a lot of steroid use and crash dieting and things like that. If you can find balance and just be healthy and just feel good in your skin and about yourself, then real sexiness is just going to exude from within. There's definitely this Ken doll image that people feel they have to live up to, but it's not always healthy getting there.

JDJ: I think with gay men, there are a lot of unhealthy stereotypes. It's almost like, do whatever you have to do to have that perfect six-pack or that perfect body. There's this level of perfection that no one can ever achieve. There's so much body dysmorphia that people have about themselves, and even if someone's body is at the best place they've ever been to, it's not enough. I think if people can just find contentment in how they look, they'll be happier. Everyone's going to look different. Everyone's going to have areas of their bodies that they're not comfortable with, but it's not all about physical perfection. A lot of people just need to look inward.