MTV is about to unveil The Real Friends Of WeHo, its reality show about six successful gay men in West Hollywood. But TV fans may recall that way back in 2010, the LGBTQ+ network LOGO unveiled its own reality TV series about six gay city dwellers called The A List: New York.
The show’s setup was roughly the same: It followed the melodrama of six gay men as they socialized around the city. The men included Amazing Race winner Reichen Lehmkuhl and his bisexual Brazilian model boyfriend Rodiney Santiago, photographer Mike Ruiz, stylist Ryan Nickulas, twinky casting agent Derek Saathoff, and wannabe model Austin Armacost.
The series only had two seasons, and Shakespeare it wasn’t. Queerty used to run catty live-blog recaps of the show’s first season.
For most of the show’s first season, the men hung out at various bars, brunches, and other New York hot spots like Fire Island, the Hamptons, and a weekly party hosted by Amanda Lepore. They regularly got drunk, had dumb catty arguments, and got botox. But they also occasionally highlighted actual gay issues (albeit with a very light touch) like adoption, bi-national marriage, the military’s ban on out soldiers, addiction, and body image.
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Plot-wise, season one revolved around Lehmkuhl and Santiago’s relationship (which mostly involved them hanging out in briefs). Their coupling fell apart, slow-motion-train-wreck-style, as Santiago realized that Lehmkuhl was hot for Armacost and also sending flirty texts to others. When Armacost wasn’t busy winking at Lehmkuhl and throwing shade at Santiago, he spent his time booking modeling gigs for rags like Inches and Playgirl.
Saathoff regularly spray-tanned and talked trash about his co-stars, beginning most of his sentences with “Well, anyway…”. Nickulas played the diplomatic pal, hosting the occasional get-together while staying politely inoffensive. Meanwhile, Ruiz — the only cast member who seemed to have an actual profession — seemed to appear on-screen for only as long as contractually obligated.
“Watching Rodiney and Reichen break up and get back together over and over again is like watching someone vomit and eat the vomit and vomit all over again. It’s disgusting,” Saathoff said at the end of the season one finale, more or less summarizing it.
The show’s second season introduced Nyasha Zumicha, a straight Black woman who brought lots of fairy princess drama. In the season’s first episode, Armacost accidentally hits Zumicha, and she calls him a child and a bully. (She wasn’t wrong.) The rest of the season focused on Zumicha’s “singing career,” Armacost’s allegedly abusive relationship with his then-fiance-and-now-ex-husband Jake Lees, and Ruiz occasionally photographing celebrities like comedian Kathy Griffin and singer Jessie J.
The show was met with mixed reviews at best: The A.V. Club called its cast “vapid and materialistic,” Entertainment Weekly said the cast shouldn’t be expected to represent the entirety of the community, and Salon said the show revealed “how gay identity is turning into a kind of consumer bracket rather than an act of self-expression.”
But despite its failings, the show wasn’t entirely without merit. It still represented a landmark for gay representation on TV (especially after a long run of gay men only being presented in media as tragic bashing victims and HIV patients). It also highlighted some worthwhile charities like the Ali Forney Center for homeless LGBTQ+ youth.
The show even had a one-season spin-off, The A-List: Dallas which brought the same kind of b*tchy melodrama to the Lone Star State. The spin-off featured an urban cowboy heartthrob, a Bible-thumping gay conservative, a drunk wannabe party promoter, and their blonde down-to-earth gal pal.
While both versions of The A-List have since faded into obscurity, it laid the groundwork for other hate-watchable gay reality TV series like the scandalous 2016 romance competition Finding Prince Charming, the bonkers 2018 parody Titi Do You Love Me and, of course, The Real Friends Of WeHo.
While the mere announcement of The Real Friends Of WeHo has already started producing eye-rolls, its “unfiltered and honest look at a select group of friends living, loving, and pursuing their passions in the West Hollywood community” may help bring along a new generation of LGBTQ programming that finally gives gay men their three-dimensional due.
Related: Whatever happened to Robert Sepúlveda Jr., the Logo reality star who lied about his escort past?
charlietex
It wasn’t lovable. It was garbage about a bunch of annoying, self-important fame whores, and I am sure the new show will be as well.
greekboy
Fame whores…what a great succinct description. Congrats
bachy
Describes all the Real Housewives as well.
ZzBomb
“The Real Friends of WeHo” are neither friends nor live in WeHo.
Discuss
ggore
After the disasters of A-List, I definitely will not be watching this new series. And I do not watch any of the “Real Housewives” series either. In fact, I do not watch any “reality TV” at all. I tired years ago of watching people yell and scream at each other because it just is not fun.
RKP
However awful this show was it provided TV gold when Reichen was in the studio attempting to sing “Up to the Sky”
Diplomat
Cast of alist is hot weho not
dbmcvey
I remember this. It was unwatchable. Armacost became truly toxic.
IvanPH
Has everybody forgotten Fire Island in Logo? No surprise that nobody remembers or perhaps even know that it existed. It was a hot mess of a show.
Kangol2
I mentioned in the comments for a prior post. It and The A-List, both the NY and Dallas series. There was also Girls Who Like Guys Who Like Guys, etc.
lykeitiz
A-List was interesting for about 5 mins because we never had anything like it before on TV. Once we realized we were just watching the bar bitches we hated in real life, we were done.
Housewives has an audience, so WeHo might too. It just won’t be me.
Kangol2
Rodiney was the best thing about this series, and that isn’t saying much.
johncp56
Oh I forgot how much i loved to hate them, bad example of gay life, but damn cute men
bsg1967
A list was a shitshow it was also a shit show
Joseph1971
I recall watching the A list show (that original piece of crap), it was heavily scripted. What cracks me up is I saw one of it’s stars on the ICU web cam program having group sex with a bunch of hotties who were not part of that cast. Since there was audio at the time on ICU I called him out by name and boy, you never saw anyone jump off a bed and try to take down a web cam. It was fun. I was later told he was on a bunch of other web cam sites even though he was “involved” with someone on his reality show. None of that television stuff was real…..and I doubt the new series will be as well. I have already read reports it was not shot in WeHo and the guys were handpicked by producers, they didn’t even know each other. This one will be cancelled in a season.