A former contestant on the Russian version of “Big Brother” is suing a tabloid and a gay web site after they published stories alleging that he is gay and worked as a prostitute.
His legal team says the case is the first time that a Russian public figure has sued over allegations that he is gay.
Vasily Pechen, 28, attended a preliminary hearing at Savyolovsky District Court on Monday with his lawyer, Alexander Zorin. The next hearing will be Sept. 8.
Pechen was a contestant on “Big Brother,” which aired in 2005 on TNT. He also appeared on TNT’s “Dom-2” for two days.
In 2005, Express Gazeta published a story headlined “To Get Rich, Vasya Pechen Worked in a Moscow Gay Club.” Pechen was paid $300 for gay sex, it quotes a former student of Moscow Military University as saying.
A second story, on Gay.ru, cited Express Gazeta but rephrased the report. Pechen “became a regular at one of the Moscow gay clubs and enjoyed the attention of wealthy Moscow gays,” it wrote.
The stories “began to cause difficulties in my ordinary life,” Pechen said outside the court, complaining that he was refused jobs.
He was turned away or sexually harassed when he applied to work at television production companies, he said. “In the light of this information, I either heard that a project had been put on hold or, ‘You’re one of us, buddy. Let’s sleep together.’”
He also links the death of his mother from cancer to her shock at seeing the newspaper report.
Unable to get into show business, he now writes a blog about his village in the Voronezh region.
Pechen is asking for publication of retractions and for 3 million rubles ($94,000) in damages from Express Gazeta and 1 million rubles in damages from Gay.ru, Zorin said.
Zorin said the story appeared both in Express Gazeta’s paper version and on its web site. He gave The Moscow Times a printout of the web pages.
Alexandra Nikolayeva, a lawyer representing Express Gazeta, said in an e-mailed statement that Pechen didn't present the court on Monday with proper proof that defamatory information was distributed.
The stories were removed from the Express Gazeta and Gay.ru web sites on Friday, Zorin said.
Gay.ru is owned by Ed Mishin, a gay activist who also publishes a magazine called Kvir. He has distanced himself from the street protests organized by the more high-profile campaigner, Nikolai Alexeyev.
A representative of Gay.ru threatened an “ever more dirty campaign” if the court case went ahead, Zorin alleged.
Mishin said in an e-mail on Monday, however, that he spoke to Zorin on the phone and suggested an agreement out of court. “He suggested that I send my naked photo as compensation,” Mishin said. “What do you think, are these people sane?”
He also said the claims weren’t valid.
“Read the text of the article — it’s about how his friend talks of his nontraditional orientation, and we are doubtful,” Mishin said. “In general, it’s complete nonsense. I only see his desire to be remembered.”
Zorin said he intended to send an official request to the military university to find the student cited in the articles, named as Alexei Krasnoslobodtsev. “We know that he doesn’t exist,” he said.
While there may be no legal precedents in Russia, in other countries famous people have won libel cases over stories alleging that they are gay.
In 1992, singer Jason Donovan was awarded £200,000 (now $332,000) in damages against Face magazine. In 2006, British footballer Ashley Cole sued The News of the World and the Sun for calling him gay. They retracted the allegations.
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