TV: A model couple

Link: Washington Blade

Excerpt:

[photo caption: Shaun McCarron (left) and Paul Anderson are using their stint in ‘The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency’ to get attention for their ripped bodies and marriage equality. (Photo by Andrew Briskin)]

THESE DAYS ON REALITY television you have to compete hard to get anywhere. [...] In this rough-and-tumble reality environment, it’s good that gay couple Paul Anderson and Shaun McCarron, both 25, found fame the old-fashioned way: they were discovered.

When the co-habitating pair was visiting Los Angeles from Orlando, Fla. — where Anderson works as a massage therapist and runs a spa and McCarron is wrapping up his MBA with a focus in hospitality management — they were just chilling at a friend’s barbecue, and who shows up but Janice Dickinson, the self-appointed world’s first supermodel and reality TV maven.

“We were like, ‘What the fuck?’” says Anderson. “We just had a good time, and at the end of the night, she asked if I had modeled before and I said I had, and I left my name and number on her cell phone. She directed me to a producer of the show, and I got a phone call a few weeks later, asking what they could offer us to be on season three.”

That’s the third season of Dickinson’s Oxygen reality show “The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency,” which started Dec. 4 and airs new episodes each Tuesday at 10:30 p.m.

[...]

What they both say they want to do in front of millions of people is draw some attention to the fight for gay marriage equality, pointing people in the direction of programs by HRC and other groups working to secure equal marriage rights.

“I think [being a gay couple on the show] helps open some eyes and [put] the focus back on the issues again,” Anderson says. “You can’t just let things happen as they happen, you need to take action. Society needs that slap in the face, saying to people, ‘Wake up, we’re not done yet.’”

Of course, they have selfish reasons for getting gays the right to marry. When asked if he and Anderson would like to tie the knot, McCarron says, “I’d love to have that chance, but now you really have to fight for it.”

Luckily, now that the filming is finished, they’re so busy fighting for the right to walk down the aisle together that they won’t be challenging others to win some silly reality television crown.

[km]