You May Remember Him From Love, Simon. Now Joey Pollari Is in American Horror Story.

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You May Remember Him From Love, Simon. Now Joey Pollari Is in American Horror Story.

Joey Pollari has gone from playing Lyle in Love, Simon to one of the new central roles in American Horror Story: 13.

Pollari plays Ben DeSoto, a hospice worker who is drawn into the world of Constance Langdon in the latest season of Ryan Murphy’s horror anthology.

For an openly gay actor, it is a strikingly visible role in one of television’s biggest horror franchises.

A role in a queer-friendly TV universe

Pollari’s connection to queer screen history began with Love, Simon, the 2018 film about a closeted high-school student navigating love, friendship and coming out.

His new role is very different. American Horror Story is darker, stranger and much less interested in making its characters feel safe.

But the visibility matters. Pollari is now part of a long-running television universe that has repeatedly made room for queer characters, queer desire and performers who do not have to hide who they are.

Bringing Polari into the present

Pollari is also making music that reaches back into queer history.

His new song, “The Low Gives Weight,” was inspired by Polari, the coded language once used by gay men in Britain to communicate discreetly when homosexuality was criminalised.

Pollari discovered Polari during the pandemic and began exploring its history and vocabulary. He uses the language as part of a larger artistic interest in the movement from private identity to public expression.

That gives his current moment an extra layer. While audiences are meeting him as Ben DeSoto in a major horror franchise, Pollari is also bringing a hidden piece of gay history into new music.

From Lyle to Ben

Many viewers will recognise Pollari from Love, Simon. Now they are seeing him in a very different kind of story — one involving hospice care, supernatural danger and Constance Langdon.

It is a memorable new chapter for an openly gay actor who is exploring queer identity both on screen and through music.

📷 @joeypollari @fxnetworks

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Marc Almond and Dave Ball Made Music Together for 47 Years. This Is Their Final Album.

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Marc Almond and Dave Ball Made Music Together for 47 Years. This Is Their Final Album.

For 47 years, Marc Almond and Dave Ball made music together.

Now Soft Cell’s final album, Danceteria, has been released — a last piece of work from the partnership behind “Tainted Love,” “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” and some of the most distinctive electronic pop of the 1980s.

Almond says Ball heard the finished album two days before he died. He was proud of it and excited about what they had created together.

A final piece of their partnership

Danceteria is inspired by early 1980s New York and named after the legendary club where Soft Cell spent time while working on their debut album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret.

For Almond, the record is also a farewell. He has said there can be no more new Soft Cell recordings without Ball, because making music together was at the heart of what the group was.

The album therefore carries the feeling of a final conversation between two people who had been making music, arguing, reconnecting and influencing each other since the late 1970s.

“Unless you lived through it”

In a new interview, Almond also reflects on what it meant to be gay through the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.

He speaks about homophobia, the devastation of the AIDS crisis and the gay men who spent decades unable to come out. Some older gay men, he says, still carry the shame so deeply that they have never been able to live openly.

“Unless you lived through it, it’s almost impossible to understand,” Almond says.

That history is part of what makes Soft Cell’s work feel so important. Almond did not simply sing about alienation, desire and nightlife from a distance. He was making music inside a culture that was often punished for being visible.

A goodbye with the music still playing

Danceteria is more than a final album. It is a record Dave Ball got to hear, approve of and feel proud of before he was gone.

Marc Almond and Dave Ball made music together for almost half a century.

This is their last album together. But the sound of that partnership is still here.

Via The Guardian.

📷 @marcalmondofficial

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Hallmark Cancelled Finding Mr. Christmas. Jonathan Bennett Wants It Back.

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Hallmark Cancelled Finding Mr. Christmas. Jonathan Bennett Wants It Back.

Hallmark has cancelled Finding Mr. Christmas after two seasons — but Jonathan Bennett is not ready to close the Christmas cabin door.

The reality competition, hosted by Bennett, brought ten hopefuls together each season to compete for the chance to become Hallmark’s next leading man.

The winners went on to star in Hallmark holiday movies.

Bennett told EntertainmentNow that show business can be unpredictable and that sometimes a programme is cancelled seemingly without warning. But he is still hoping Finding Mr. Christmas might return in a year or two.

More than a competition

The show had a simple format: ten men, Christmas-themed challenges and the promise of a leading role in a holiday movie.

But the contestants also built a genuine community. Bennett says they are still friends, and two of them became fathers within weeks of each other. Viewers even held parties around the country to watch the episodes.

That is part of what made the show feel different. It was not only a search for Hallmark’s next handsome leading man. It was a group of men being ambitious, vulnerable, silly and supportive while the cameras were rolling.

Still hoping for a return

Bennett has not given up on the idea that the series could find a new home. The show had received a GLAAD Award nomination, and its contestants went on to become part of Hallmark’s wider Christmas universe.

For viewers, the appeal was not difficult to understand: attractive men in festive clothes, a little competition and a host who made the whole thing feel welcoming.

Hallmark may have cancelled Finding Mr. Christmas. But the friendships, the watch parties and the Christmas spirit are still very much alive.

📷 Hallmark Media / Jonathan Bennett

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A Councillor Has a Grindr Profile. Why Should That Be a Scandal?

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A Councillor Has a Grindr Profile. Why Should That Be a Scandal?

Paul John O’Neill is a Labour councillor for North Heywood. He is also a gay man with a dating life — a fact some people apparently considered grounds for demanding his resignation.

Images and details from O’Neill’s Grindr profile were shared online, accompanied by comments suggesting that a public figure should be more discreet and calls for him to quit ( PinkNews ).

O’Neill responded with a photograph of himself holding a pint of Murphy’s and a joke about being “not bitter.” He said people had created accounts on the dating app to find his profile, screenshot it and circulate it with unpleasant comments.

His position was straightforward: he is not ashamed of having a social and dating life, and it has no bearing on the work he does for his ward.

Private life is not a qualification test

This is not a story about outing someone who was hiding his sexuality. O’Neill is openly gay. It is a story about people treating a gay man’s private dating life as if it were evidence that he is unfit for public office.

That standard makes no sense. Councillors can be judged on their decisions, their responsiveness and the way they serve their communities. A profile on a dating app tells voters none of those things.

O’Neill also said he is single and joked that the episode might result in a date or two. The humour is welcome, but the underlying point matters more: gay men should not have to make themselves invisible to be treated as serious professionals.

A refusal to be shamed

Supporters, including fellow councillors and members of the public, pushed back against the attempt to turn ordinary private life into a political weapon.

O’Neill’s pint-and-boundary response lands because it refuses the premise. There is no apology needed for being gay, having a dating life or expecting basic privacy.

📷 Paul John O’Neill / Facebook

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Rob Jetten Visits Stonewall Inn as the Netherlands’ First Openly Gay Prime Minister

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Rob Jetten Visits Stonewall Inn as the Netherlands’ First Openly Gay Prime Minister

Rob Jetten visited the Stonewall Inn in New York this week — not simply as a politician, but as the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister.

Jetten was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly when he stopped at the historic Greenwich Village bar.

A place that changed history

Stonewall is not just a gay bar. The 1969 uprising following a police raid helped spark a global movement for LGBTQ+ rights and liberation.

Jetten described the site as an important symbol of that history and said the Netherlands stands alongside the Stonewall community and everyone’s right to live openly, safely and with pride.

There is a particular power in seeing an openly gay head of government standing inside the place where so many queer people once fought simply to be left alone.

Progress is not the end of the story

The Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2001. Jetten’s presence at Stonewall is part of that longer story of progress.

But he also warned that LGBTQ+ rights remain under pressure around the world. He has said that acceptance is declining in the Netherlands as well, and that younger people need to hear that they are still allowed to be themselves.

Rob Jetten with fiancé Nico Keenan
Rob Jetten with fiancé Nico Keenan

That makes the visit more than a ceremonial photograph.

It is a reminder of how far the movement has come — and that history still needs people willing to stand visibly inside it.

📷 @jettenrob

Sources: NL Times.

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