Dennis RomeroOkay — we know what you're thinking: John Travolta is super friggin' gay: He makes Andy Dick look like a mixed-martial arts heavyweight from Brazil.
But hear us out: Some of the allegations against Travolta in recent years seem more like gay fantasies than journalistic reality. We even reported that one L.A. spa which was claimed to have been the locale of a mano-a-mano Travolta come-on is not even a cruising spot (it's a straight, Korean joint!).
And still, allegations continue to dog our Pulp Fiction hero. Today Gawker reports that records indicate an insurance firm covering Travolta's production company made a $80,750 pay out to a claimant.
The site indicates the accuser is one of two men, a Beverly Hills masseur and a Georgia-based masseur, who claimed the star indulged in inappropriate sexual behavior during private massage sessions.
Listen, people, these ridiculous and unconfirmed reports that Travolta likes to wear towels (or not) while on his knees (or not) around hairy Latino or Middle Eastern men (or not) have all come at us second- and third-hand. Every L.A. party seems to feature buzz about someone who knows someone who knows someone who had a rub-and-tug encounter (or worse) with Tony Manero. Yet no one can prove it!
Credit: Saturday Night Fever
So what if the guy likes half-nude, man-on-man muscle therapy in private once in a while. We all do. Look at an NFL locker room sometime.
Sure, Travolta is amazingly in shape and well-dressed for man who will turn 60 next year. This is rare for straight geezers, we know. But he is a movie star. They have to stay fit. Yes, his voice is not exactly in the timbre of James Earl Jones. Yes, his shiny, scrubbed face is taught and obviously well-cared-for. But he's a celebrity! What do you expect him to do with all that money? Get fat and make the ladies suffer? That's what a non-celebrity would do.
Here are 5 reasons John Travolta is NOT gay. Consider them carefully:
Credit: johntravolta.com
5. He's a Scientologist. Forget all the things you've heard about Scientology allegedly blackmailing stars with reportedly checkered pasts. This religion does not welcome gay behavior. Founder L. Ron Hubbard called homosexuality a “perversion.” Scientology's San Diego outpost even supported Prop. 8, the California law, under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, that bans same-sex marriage. Travolta couldn't have chosen a less-gay belief system, besides maybe gun collecting or woman-on-man massages.
Credit: Andrew Macpherson / kellypreston.com
4. He has a super-hot MILF of a wife. And LF her he does, apparently, with actual results in the form of three children! John Travolta is officially and technically a breeder, even if gay folks have children too, and even if he met and married Preston at the nadir of his career, three years before Pulp Fiction put him back on the Hollywood map. Do you see Preston filing for divorce or running away to Manhattan? No! Travolta's house is no revolving door of fake wives contractually obligated to tough it out for five-year intervals.
3. He drives a Mercedes SL. The theft last year of one of Travolta's cars in Santa Monica revealed the actor's taste in fine German machinery — namely, a 1970 Mercedes SL. Sure, such a convertible coupe is the quintessential girl car, if by girl you mean millionaire GILF from La Jolla or interior decorator from WeHo. And Travolta was apparently riding in it (top down?) with another dude before he parked it in Santa Monica.
But hear us out: The Mercedes SL was the car driven by Richard Gere's character in the all-time players' player movie American Gigolo. It was as if Tony Manero grew up, got some class, and moved to Beverly Hills to become a professional man whore, trading in that white suit for Armani (though the tight pants remained). All of a sudden this car — same color, but 10 years newer — is macho. See?
2. He's a pilot. Of course, gay men are pilots too. But if your whole life was a sham — you're married to a hottie, you have kids, you play macho on the big screen, but you're really into guys — would you choose a Boeing 707 jetliner, which Travolta sometimes parks in his Florida back yard, as transportation?! We mean, talk about phallic vehicles. Lesser celebrities are lucky to hitch rides on short little Gulfstreams. Travolta is rocking the Ron Jeremy of private aircraft, a plane so large that many small airports can't even take it.
And consider this: Pilot is to straight male professions what ballroom dancer is to gay ones. Quagmire, the filthiest straight perv of all time, is a pilot. Leonardo DiCaprio played a wannabe pilot and serial womanizer in Catch Me If You Can. It's a pasttime that's so virulently heterosexual, it's impossible to imagine anyone would choose it as a front to hide behind.
Turn the page for the ultimate reason John Travolta can't possibly be gay …
1. That walk! Sure, Travolta broke through as a neighborhood tough on television's Welcome Back Kotter. But two years later he was bone-thin — the original duck face! — and strutting in tight slacks and high-heeled disco shoes in Saturday Night Fever. Gold chains and a hairy chest never looked so good.
But don't let the dancing skills fool you: That strut is all Italian stallion, baby. No clinched buttocks or effeminate sway here. Travolta is headed straight for the nearest vagina, trust us. Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm a woman's man / No time to talk.
So the next time you're at a party and someone says they know somebody who knows somebody who dropped towel with Travolta in some seedy spa, you tell them that no bear aficionado ever walked like that. Ever.
[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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