Is Sam Milby Gay?

THE FIL-AM hunk Sam Milby is currently the center of intense scrutiny, along with his best friend Piolo Pascual, of possibly being gay. Both are extremely good-looking, young, nice, quiet and give each other such starry looks when in each other’s company on ABS-CBN that it is very hard not to think that they are gay and a couple too!

Sam grew up in Ohio and only moved to the Philippines to try his luck in show biz in 2005 when he got his big break when he bested 200 other candidates to win a slot on the first season of the hit reality TV show “Pinoy Big Brother.” That helped propel him into the public eye and he hasn’t looked back since. Now he is the co-star of a hit movie with Toni Gonzaga, makes regular appearances on ASAP, and has an album. He’s even having a concert next week with……you guessed it…..Piolo.

Filipinos love gossiping about their show biz stars, so its no wonder that a veritable cottage industry has sprung up of trying to guess who is gay, and if so who they are dating. Although the Philippines is very open and accepting of gay men, there are limits to the perception of public acceptance of such a sexual preference, especially in the entertainment industry. The code of conduct in the industry seems to be suspiciously similar to the US military’s when it comes to being gay, i.e. its infamous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. That way actors who are gay don’t have to lie about their sexuality, but can keep both young girls and gay men pining (or should I say lusting) after them and buying their CDs and watching their movies.

One Pinoy blogger who constantly reports such rumors in a humorous way is Manila Gay Guy. He even did on online poll of his readers to find who thought Sam Milby was gay, and of 656 respondents the results were as follows: Yes, Sam is gay: 67%. No, Sam is straight: 24%, and Not sure: 10%.

But MGG is not alone in obsessing about a possible Milby-Pascual pairing. The mainstream Philippine Entertainment Portal, owned by the Inquirer Group of Publications and edited by JoAnn Maglipon, carried a photo showing Sam and Piolo allegedly holding hands and smiling sweetly into the camera. This had the Webosphere buzzing with intrigue. But PEP was having nothing of it, claiming the picture had been Photoshopped to have a female actress, standing between the two love birds, chopped out of the picture. (Click here to see the photo.)

Whether or not Sam and Piolo are gay is really not of earth-shattering consequence. The endless speculation was at first fun but now is dangerously reaching the point of being intrusive and annoying to the two. We should respect the private lives of showbiz stars….but I do think that they do make an adorable pair!***

GMA Channel 7 is currently airing a male beauty contest packaged as a reality show called “Ultimate Hunk”. Watch the video of one episode here:

Finally, I leave with this yummy photo of Ray Allen, 27 years old, 5′9″, who won the title Mr. Gay Philippines 2007 on March 17, 2007. I took it from MGG’s blog and hope he doesn’t mind. Enjoy!