Photo by Mike Ruiz (lifted form Anthony’s Instagram)
Hi, Caftaners! I hope everyone’s well. As you know, I’ve never been one to hide my political stripes, so I’ll begin by saying that as a 34-year New Yorker, I was pretty elated by Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win this week. My friend and I were walking to a campaign-night watch party at the club Nowadays in Ridgewood at about 9pm on Tuesday when we heard a thunderous explosion of cheers rise up ahead of us. So we whipped out our phones, hit our New York Times app, and—yes, victory! Mountains of ink have since been spilled by both Mamdaniphiles and Mamdaniphobes, so I’ll merely say that, at the party, I was filled with joy watching thousands of people roughly half my age—people who have to spend their twenties and thirties living through this shitty fascist regime that we’re in—revel in the fact that change is actually possible. I’ll just leave it at that.
Why so terse, Tim? Because I’m tired! I’m sorry the frequency of my Caftan chats has dropped off a little bit but, as I’ve mentioned before, I have a full-time editorial job now so all things Caftan have more or less been relegated to evenings and weekends. (It’s nearly midnight as I frantically pull this interview together, for example.) But on the flip side, I love Caftan and don’t want to let it go. I love all of you for hanging in there with me and continuing to support it. (Please consider becoming a paid subscriber!) I have an interview tomorrow evening with someone you’ve surely heard of—and someone whom I deeply admire and respect for his activism as well as his talent—so that’ll be the next one. And I have a few more great ones lined up. (Reach out to me if you ever have ideas or connections.)
But this one: Let me tell you how it happened. I think my friend Brian Herrera (who has his own Substack called TheaterClique) suggested I interview hot-daddy Instagram star Anthony Verrachia.
From his Instagram. Why is an Italian stallion wearing a Star of David? You’ll soon find out! (It’s touching!)
I don’t think I’ve ever interviewed someone known just for being an IG star, so I said, sure, why not? I spent some time on Anthony’s thirst-trap Instagram and thought to myself, “This guy is probably an insufferable narcissist.” I couldn’t have been more wrong, and I say that with all humility. I don’t even think I have to go on further about what a sweetheart he is, because you’ll see for yourself. And this is one interview that gets juicier as it goes along, so keep reading!
That’s it, Caftaners. I’ll see you again as soon as I can get tomorrow’s interview pulled together. Meantime, here’s the hunky and sweet-as-cannoli Staten Island Anthony…
Hi, Anthony! Thanks for doing a Caftan with me. So, you grew up Italian on Staten Island?
Yes. I’m Italian on both sides. My grandparents came here in 1917 when they were teenagers and children. Staten Island is so red that it bleeds, including my family. [And we get to talking about politics a bit, but honestly I don’t feel like going into that tonight.]
With his sisters, Jersey shore, 1970 (from his IG)
Do you think that the fact that you are gay is what—that you might have the same beliefs of your family and other Staten Islanders if you had been straight and stayed there? I think being gay, we’re outsiders, and it often compels people to move to the city, which is diverse, and it changes you, and you have a sense of being a minority as well so you have more sympathy for other minorities. Do you think you might’ve ended up an Italian Staten Island Trumper if you hadn’t been gay?
I might have. I can think back to when I was in grammar school as young as kindergarten, knowing that there was something a little bit different about me.
Around that age (in fact, all photos following from his IG unless otherwise noted, or not noted)
I liked creativity and I was very open-minded. I never liked sports. My sister who’s a Trumper always wanted me to be more like a man, play baseball. But when Sonny and Cher came on, I tuned in to see what Cher was wearing. Hello, I’m gay. I even told that sister that when I was a kid I’d try on her high heels. Because I knew it would trigger her. She said nothing but I knew she was mortified.
Anthony’s lovely mom, who died in 1990 when he was about 27.
I was teased and bullied a lot, called faggot, even through high school. So by the time I was out of junior high, I knew what I liked. I’d look at Playgirl and wow, I liked that. Even though I had a neighbor next door, this girl, and we’d make out. But by high school, I knew I was gay. I loved guys who worked out and had muscle. One of my next-door neighbors was a bodybuilder who had weights in his garage and I’d go over and lift a few weights and stare at his body.
When did you come out?
Thirty-five.
Roughly around that time.
Wow! What did you do prior? Were you married to a woman?
Nope. I never dated a girl. I went out with friends to straight bars. How I came out was that I did things on the down-low, the parking lot thing. But I didn’t leave Staten Island until 2000. Before that, I’d hang out with straight friends and once we all went to the Roxy together and it was gay night. I was thinking, “This is really hot.” Shirtless guys with great bodies. I wasn’t out yet. But the next Saturday night I went by myself. This is around when Cher’s “Believe” came out. I would also go to South Beach by myself and meet guys on the gay beach and go up to certain guys. “Hey, you wanna hang out?” So I started having sex, including group sex. And I learned a lot from gay porn, too. I bought a lot of VHS tapes.
Also around that time.
What was your favorite?
Tom Chase [Tim: my favorite Caftan guest!] and the other guys from the eighties and the nineties. And I learned what poppers were. So when AOL came out I’d go in the chat rooms and meet people and then play around with them.
Why do you think you came out somewhat late for our generation of Gen X or young Boomers?
I was afraid of what people might think of me, of how they’d judge me. Of what my family would think. So when I came back from South Beach, I was in my car and I yelled out to myself, “I’m gay.” It was the first time I’d said that to myself. And meanwhile I was developing a circle of gay friends. So first I told my other friends and then, last, my family. And they said, “Well, we kind of knew it but we didn’t want to insult you by asking if you were.” I’d never lived with my father, who’s still alive. He had an issue with it. I never told my mother. She passed away in 1990. A relative later told me that she knew I was gay. Mothers know. Also, my oldest sister, who was a hairdresser, had an issue with it. But then I got married.
Ptown, summer 2000.
To a woman?
To a man, my first husband, Bill. I met him at Sandy Hook, the Jersey nude beach with a lot of gays. Believe me, they were not all porn models! But I met some guys and one of them told me about the White Party. This is the late nineties. So I went and thought, “Oh my God, this is my world.” The music, the guys, the people. “I’m not going to a karaoke bar with my straight friends anymore.” I met the hottest guys. I just went with it and had a great time. Then I heard about the Black Party. So I went to that. I still have my first harness. A friend I went with gave me half an Ecstasy and I loved it and said to him, “Give me the other half.” And I was making out with this one and that one. And I made friends with all the Chelsea guys. And one of them, his name was Bill and we became a couple and got married in 2002. He passed away tragically. He drowned in the Hudson River.
Anthony and Bill, Ptown, 2000.
Oh my God. I’m so sorry. What happened? Was it suicide?
[sighs] Well, they said it was suicide. Technically, was it? Probably on paper—yeah. But I knew that he would not do that to me. He had HIV when I met him. And all his friends said to him, “Once Staten Island Anthony hears you have HIV, he’s gonna leave you.” So one day he told me. It took me back a little. And he told me all his friends thought I was going to split. But I didn’t. I stayed with him.
What was your reaction to it?
I was freaked out a little bit. We mainly had oral sex but when we had anal sex, we used condoms.
So he didn’t put you at risk prior to telling you?
He never would’ve done that. He told me he got such a bad strain of HIV that he almost died, before the good meds came out. He lost a lot of weight and thought he was going to die. He lived in the Chelsea Hotel and got himself all fucked up with drugs and slit both wrists and was found in a pool of blood. This was in the nineties before we met. But he recovered and went on the new HIV meds. He was becoming healthier and working out. So I met him after all that. And he said to me, I’d never kill myself on you. But he had inner demons. He was Jewish. I converted to Judaism for him.
I was going to ask you about that because you’re wearing two big Stars of David in your Instagram photos, but I was like, “What the hell, his name is Anthony is Varrechia.” So you wear them for him?
Yes. I don’t actively follow Judaism anymore like I did with him, but I do wear my stars and light the candles on Hanukah. My current husband Mark lights them with me.
Oh, that’s sweet. Is Mark Jewish?
No, he’s half Native American and half Scottish. They were Utah Mormons but they got out of it. But yeah, I converted to Judaism for Bill, and it was a lot of work. I had to do a mikvah [a ritual Jewish purification bath] and study the Torah. Bill chose a Hebrew name for me. I did all that for him.
Do you remember that episode of Sex and the City where Charlotte is converting and she’s going into the mikvah bath and she stops and asks the mikvah lady, “Was this tub drained before me?” [laugh] That’s one of my favorite SATC moments.
That’s the mikvah I went into. It’s on the Upper East Side. The water went up my nose when I plunged in backwards three times. So I was reborn a Jew and we joined a synagogue. Before he passed away, we were even planning on making aliyah [moving to Israel]. We went to Israel a few times together.
Bill at the Western Wall.
But he had inner things to deal with and he died a month after our last trip there. He was drinking too much along with Valium and I think he went to the pier. I even have a text message he left me. This was in 2008. That was the most horrible thing I’ve ever dealt with in my life, them searching for his body in the river and finally finding it. Then I had to go and identity it—the most horrible thing I’ve ever had to do. They were showing me photos of his tattoos. The only ones I wouldn’t look at were photographs of his face. We had just come back from Israel. But he had these inner demons that I just couldn’t shake off him. He was intelligent, political. He read the Bible, the Koran, the Torah. I have his Torah with all his notes in it. But he said he couldn’t understand the Koran at all. He knew so much. We had a little house and a home furnishing store upstate in New York and we’d go back and forth.
Wait—you guys didn’t live in 250 W. 19th, did you?
Yeah—Luigi Caiola’s building.
Anthony and I lived in the same gay dorm!
Wait, wow! My boyfriend at the time and I lived in that building at the same time.
We lived right above [the DJ] Junior Vazquez.
I didn’t know Junior lived in that building! But I remember seeing you guys moving stuff from your store from your car to the building, or vice versa, and saying to my boyfriend, “Who are those two hot guys?” We called that building the gay dorm.
It was the gay dorm, yes. Those units now are like $5,000 or $6,000.
That’s insane. We knew Luigi too and he gave us a break on the rent, so in the mid-2000s I think we were paying about $1600 or $1700 for a one-bedroom.
Anyway, when I lost Bill, I wanted to die. I almost tried it a couple of times. But the only thing that kept me here was taking care of our dogs—a Yorkie, a chihuahua and a Maltese.
I’m so sorry, Anthony. How long was the period of intense grief?
Years. I cried every day for I don’t know how long. I dated other guys but they never became relationships. As time went on, for me, certain things became okay to do. So I met Mark in 2017 on Facebook, as friends. It was a year before we met in person.
Anthony and Mark.
And he was in D.C.?
Yes, Logan Circle. I told him initially I didn’t want a long-distance relationship. But we visited each other for about a year, then in June 2018, I moved to D.C. to be with him.
Staten Island Anthony becomes Beltway Anthony.
What has that been like for such a New York boy?
I like D.C. but I miss Manhattan every day. But as for Mark, he knows all about Bill and talks about him and says to me, “He is part of our relationship.”
Oh, that’s so sweet.
They had so much in common. They both loved the New Romantics. I really feel that Bill brought Mark to me. And Mark’s only my second relationship after Bill.
Oh, I love that. Okay, so Anthony, you’re I think the first big Instagram personality I’ve interviewed. How many followers do you have?
Well, once when I posted something in support of Kamala Harris, I lost about 8,000 followers and went down to about 188,000 from 196,000. My goal was 200,000. I usually don’t post political stuff. But someone sent me a cute Kamala mug and I have a coffee series I do on IG, so I posted it.
Here it is:
Anthony Varrecchia on Instagram: “Project 2025. What hits close…
Oh, did people comment negatively?
Well— [pause, then drifts to an adjacent topic] I don’t mind people being flirty with me, but when they get too off-color, I report them. But generally I put creative stuff on IG and political stuff on Facebook, all this crap we’re going through right now. But on IG, where I post my professional modeling photos, I’ve even had companies reach out to me asking me to promote them and I get free products. Like a beautiful $1500 leather jacket.
I’m not sure if this is the leather jacket Anthony is talking about, but I’m posting it anyway because…woof!
Marrying Mark in 2023.
When did you start modeling?
Not officially until a friend photographed me about 10 years ago. When I posted those photos on IG, other photographers reached out asking if they could photograph me, and I’d say, “Sure.” I worked in publishing for over 30 years. I know what production is like. I worked for Condé Nast, Time Inc. I know it from soup to nuts. A few years ago, Attitude in the UK did a five-page spread on me. So I went from working on magazines to being in them. I even did two billboards in NYC for the city HIV prevention “Stay Sure” campaign. Dr. Demetre Daskalakis asked me to do them.
I remember you in those ads!
My beard was too puffy in that shoot. So after that, I’d trim my own beard before a shoot. But yeah I ended up on billboards in Soho. And in the subway, where someone once sitting next to me pointed to the poster and said, “Is that you?”
Haha, that’s funny.
It was kinda fun!
Your modeling career started when you were about 52. What was it like starting a modeling career at an unusually late age? I mean, we have a lot more older models now—men and women.
Selfie before a modeling shoot…hair artfully mussed!