CYBERSPACE - What is it about election years and financial meltdowns that causes people to go digging through almost everyone's past for links to smut?
This week two new power players were "outed" as having ties to gay porn. Billy Kemp, FreemantleMedia's newly appointed vice president of casting and talent, and Terrence Bean, a fund-raiser for the Barack Obama presidential campaign, were identified by different media outlets as significant players in the gay adult industry, at least at one time.
According to the online scandal sheet Defamer, Kemp performed, wrote and directed during the 1990s under the nom de porn Jordan Young. Among the at least 34 titles in which he appeared are Nightwatch 2 (Mustang), Idol in the Sky (Men of Odyssey), Hung Riders 2: The Heat is On (Catalina) and Hardcore (All Worlds).
Although Kemp reportedly once considered a career in porn to be something of a noose around any mainstream dreams he might have harbored, post-porn he became a casting exec for reality shows like Nanny 911, Temptation Island and Elimidate. He also served as a researcher for Richard Simmons' Dream Maker.
According to the New York Post, Bean is rumored to have been the first gay man tapped for the Obama campaign's finance committee. He is the sole trustee of the Charles M. Holmes Foundation, which until 2004 owned Falcon Entertainment, Mustang Studios and Jock Studios. Together the three companies are estimated to produce about $10 million worth of gay porn annually.
Bean, an Oregon real estate developer who has donated to Republican campaigns in the past (including John McCain's), said he "never had anything to do with running" the adult entertainment studios, which were owned by holding company Conwest Resources, for which he served as chief executive officer.