I watched Nate Berkus on "Oprah" last weekend, I think it was a Sunday night repeat. They gave a tour of his apartment in Chicago which overlooks Lake Michigan. Now, I think Nate is charming and super dooper attractive but I did start to wonder about his taste!
He likes to mix old with new and do very eclectic things and while some of it worked for me, a lot of it didn't. So, if I could afford to, I might not hire him. But the nicest touches were photos taken by his late partner Fernando Bengoechea who was killed in the Southeast Asian tsunami.
Anyway, it was nice to see Nate's face on the cover of the August issue of Out magazine last night when I stopped by the newstand on Fairfax and Melrose after a screening of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix." [A review to come later today].
According to a post on Towelroad.com, the interview highlight comes Berkus mentions his January 2005 appearance with Oprah on the show shortly after his partner's death: "After the show, I got a tremendous amount of letters and e-mails from kids across the country who were coming out. They said that watching the way my relationship with Fernando was presented on the show gave them the courage to say to their friends and parents, 'You know what, I'm gay just like him and I want to have what he had.' The most touching correspondence I received came from an 18-year-old who said, 'I'd never seen a gay couple's love story presented like that on TV before."
"Now that I've seen it, I realize I'd be wasting a lot of time if I didn't get out there and try to find it for myself.' It was amazing, and it makes me really proud, because somebody somewhere was watching the show and it changed how they viewed themselves and their own opportunities to live in a successful gay relationship...I wasn't concerned about presenting my relationship with Fernando to the world. I wanted people to know about our life and what I lost."