Nov. 8, 2007

So Hans is gay: Tales from a disastrous coming-out

By STEVE FRIESS

There are times when something is so badly, so tragically handled that reasonable people are left to wonder what those in charge were thinking. This is one.

Hans Klok is gay. No, I'm not outing him. He finally came clean in a terrific cover story in the November Q Vegas Magazine, the valley's glossy GLBT monthly. There he is on the cover, arms spread wide in one of his flouncy white shirts. "The End of an Illusion," the headline screams, and placed between his legs is this quote: "I'm proud about who I am. I don't want to lie."

Inside, writer Erica Grimaldo finally gives us the real story, and it is incredibly offensive to everyone, gay or straight. Klok has been out in his native Holland for as long as he can remember. He even has a partner of 16 years. He dreamed-as most magicians do-of taking Las Vegas by storm, but when he finally got his big shot, he was expressly warned to conceal his homosexuality.

"They told me you don't want to talk about that right away here in America," he told Grimaldo. "They said it's best to wait two years, until people get to know me."

As if it was even possible. He set gaydar bells a-ringing from the moment he stepped onstage. Nobody buys into the stereotypes more than gay people themselves when they're trying to decipher who's what, and the long, flowing, lovingly coiffed blond locks are as dead a giveaway as they were when Siegfried had them. Not even European straight men are that fey.

Still, Klok went on Howard Stern in June and claimed heterosexuality. Then the entertainment media was peddled the preposterous claim that Klok and his magician's assistant, Pamela Anderson, were an item. Happily, many-including the Review-Journal's Norm Clarke-could see right through this charade and refused to play along even after photos were circulated of the "pair" in close, suggestive embraces. But send Pam to Vegas and she's bound to wind up married again, so when it turned out her paramour wasn't Klok and rumors surfaced that she was preggers, his beard fell off like the Halloween costume it was.

The whole thing made me furious, and I took it out on Klok in several columns on this magazine's website. Now I pity him. I dislike being lied to, and I dislike when obviously gay people imply there's something wrong with being gay by pretending they're not. We live in an age when the private lives-and parts-of celebrities are bared for all to see. Why is it fine for reporters to expose a star's drug habit or infidelity but not his sexual orientation?

Worse, though, was how unnecessary it all seemed. This is not the age of Siegfried and Roy or Liberace any longer. MGM Mirage and Harrah's jockey for bragging rights as to who is the more pro-gay corporation. Elton John, Zumanity's Joey Arias and Phantom's Brent Barrett are out and proud and raking in big bucks. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority sends showboys to appear on Gay Pride floats in New York City.

So Klok's lie backfired, he was widely mocked, and his show is now closing December 8 after six short months. Gone, too, may be his potential Vegas career.

Amazingly, Grimaldo tells me Klok's handlers still tried to avert his coming-out by asking Q Vegas not to ask Klok "the question." Grimaldo insisted it's a fundamental question for the magazine, and in the end she gave Klok a great gift. "Nobody else asked about that, you are the first," he told her. "It's good to talk about it."

Imagine this instead: Klok bursts into town as an out performer. Gay people and all those Queer Eye-loving women flock to support him. Pam is played up as the ultimate fag hag, and their bawdy humor is actually funny and original because, say, they both lust after the same scantily clad male assistant. The straight guys and lesbians are sated by Pam and all the other women. Everybody wins.

Not that any of this would have saved a lousy show. Klok's problems went far beyond his mangled media image; his production is almost entirely composed of tricks we've seen on other Vegas stages. But I suspect that had they started from the point of view that this is a very handsome, exotically European gay man, their imaginations might have taken them somewhere other than to this sad result.

The irony is that this comes at the same time as another magic star is facing serious problems-for being straight. Many assumed David Copperfield was gay and that his thing with Claudia Schiffer was a ploy, but now he's under FBI investigation linked to possible misconduct with a woman. Even if that turns out to be nothing, it has nonetheless come out that the magician seems to use his shows to scope out potential female sex partners to whisk to his Bahamian resort.

That's not illegal, but it is creepy. So Klok was gay and in a stable relationship but was told to keep a lid on it. And Copperfield just came screaming out of the heterosexual closet shouting, "Not only am I straight, but I'm kind of disgusting about it!"

Fun town, huh?

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