I have to admit that this is a funny show. Or horrifying in the case of the guy who was too cheap to buy anything at all. I wanted to call his girlfriend and tell her to drop everything and run for her life. Stingy people are generally stingy with their emotions as well.
Anyhow, while watching this skinflint, a question occurred to me. Does the show pay for all the home and personal improvements or does the straight guy pay for it?
The show pays for it, but they base what they spend on the person’s income (i.e. what could this person reasonably afford to pay if it were their own money), which is why they do more for the lawyers living in posh NYC suburbs than they do for the struggling artists.
Trivia: the stingy guy works as a waiter at The Restaurant (another reality show on Bravo).
Incidentally, the show gets huge discounts if not flat-out freebies from the merchants that they use in exchange for the product-placement advertising. That’s why they’re always sure to mention the store or the brand they’re supplying.
And that cheap no taste-havin’ sob did not deserve the cool martini set or the Saarinen chairs (4 chairs at $816 EACH!) or the couch (Eames Sofa Compact? about $2700) He doesn’t even know what they are, who the designers are, what they are worth, or what they mean to modern furniture design. He got about $15K worth of stuff, I bet. They should make him pay taxes on it. Cheap bastard.
I’m not sure, but several of us were watching “The Restaurant” and screamed “Oh my god!” when we saw him. It was a positive ID, but I’ve not seen it confirmed in print.
I’m sure he is required to pay taxes on it. It’s no different than receiving a prize on a game show. It’s considered income.
Yeah, the guy is a real piece of work. I about fell over when he started banging on the cookie cutter with the cookbook. And how tough is it to mix a gin and tonic? What a simpleton!
That guy (Alan) was clearly the most hopeless. His stinginess was pathological. And yet he had a girlfriend of two years. Judging by this show, I would have gotten laid far more often if I had gone to school in NYC.
One thing I have been wondering about. How is it that if the Queer Eye guys meet the person for the first time in the morning they manage to completely figure out what furniture to get (have it pre-ordered and ready) and paint the walls perfectly all in a space of about 4 hours while the guy is out shopping for clothes and getting everything done. I’m just wondering but I suspect some pre-planning here.
Since the Alan C. episode was aired, it’s been shown that he is a “struggling” comedian and a professional cheapskate who was indeed the busboy on The Restaurant, and that his alternate career was kept from the Fab Five and the show’s producers, whose Straight Guy guidelines include “no professional actors.”
Second - eman77 - the show is filmed over a period of four days. That info has been published in lots of interviews with the guys, and in some TV and radio interviews as well, so I am wondering why they bother to keep up the “all in one day” charade.
That he’s a busboy doesn’t surprise me as much as the fact he’s a comedian; he didn’t exactly light up the room with his wit and charisma during the party.
He was also profiled on CNN before he was ever on QUEER EYE, it turns out.