[man] I was the kind of child that was shy,
but only outside of my house.
When I was alone in my room, I could feel like myself.
But when I was in my room and in front of other people,
I felt like I had to put on some sort of front
and act like everybody else.
But I knew I wasn’t like everybody else.
There is a special excitement in the air for the 40,000 fans
who are waiting for Madonna to take the stage.
As a matter of fact, at every stop along her 90,000-mile tour,
Madonna has caused a commotion.
[dance music]
[cheering]
I definitely know why we were picked, why me and Jose were picked.
Because she definitely wanted us to choreograph the Vogue video...
and then tour after.
We already had this vogue thing going on.
Our group was quite known
in the underground scene in New York City.
[man #2] Madonna came to New York to meet us.
She was like, “Hey, what’s up? I heard a lot about you
and this vogue thing you guys do.
I wanna see. Will you show me?”
[woman] Very clearly.
Jose is very young. He’s talented in many forms of dance.
[man] She saw a raw talent. She saw character.
Young, artistic expression is the best.
Spoke my mind, just like she did.
We carried our flamboyance as a warning.
Yes, we have earrings on. Yes, we have eyeliner on.
But don’t mistake any of this-- [chuckles] for weakness.
[man] I remember seeing the ad.
I had just had the roughest summer of my life.
I had no money to eat. I had no money to, like, get around.
I had a terrible highlighted mullet.
I’d never seen so many people at an audition. It was madness.
It went all the way down the block.
[man] I was young and I was hungry and America was new to me.
I arrived, uh, June ’87.
June 20, ’87.
And then after being three years in New York,
I got the job with Madonna.
This is so wild. I’m panicking right now. Belgium stress.
I always wanted everybody to look at me, like, all the time.
Like, dancing, I always wanted to be the best dancer.
I wanted to be the best artist. I wanted to be the best at everything, yeah.
And with dancing, I mean, I mostly was.
[man] I remember getting home
and I had a message on my answering machine.
No one has answering machines anymore.
I answered and it was like,
“Um, hi. I’m trying to reach Carlton. This is Madonna.”
And I was like, “What the fuck? She called my house.”
And she said that she was gonna be going to a club called Club Louis.
And she was inviting me to come.
And all the boys that were there, you know--
Kevin was there. I remember Oliver was there, Jose and Luis.
I think basically the cast that ended up being cast were there that night.
Oh, man. I went home and I said, “Mom, I made it.”
And I dropped down on my knees and started crying. And that was it.
[music playing]
[cheering]
Strike a pose.
[Kevin] For this tour, Madonna had seen a lot of great dancers.
So I think once you’ve seen the great dancers,
what stands out next is style and personality.
There’s a statement that I have always sat with
that represented how she dealt with us,
and it was-- Give me more of you.
Give me more of you.
Liberal.
Expressive. You know, we were just like what she was into at the time.
Pushing buttons and not being afraid to say who we were.
♪ Don’t go for second best, baby ♪
♪ Put your love to the test ♪
♪ You know, you know, you’ve got to ♪
[Carlton] That show was about freedom.
Freedom as an artist, freedom as a human being.
Freedom in regards to fucking speak the truth.
♪ Express yourself ♪
[Luis] Express yourself, you know, and not be ashamed about it.
♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
We had our own thing, our own attitude, our own style, our--
We all were brought up differently.
Even though the six of them were gay, they all were brought up differently.
I mean, we all had a story to tell.
♪ Ah yeah, ah yeah, ah yeah, yeah ♪
♪ They can say whatever I’m gonna do whatever ♪
♪ No pain is forever Yup, you know this ♪
♪ Tougher than a lion Ain’t no need in tryin’ ♪
♪ I live where the sky ends, yup ♪
[Salim] Oh, my God, we let Oliver have it sometimes, you know.
We were all classically trained dancers too.
He was the only one who actually just came from kind of like a hip-hop background.
We used to call him not like a real dancer, yeah.
Before I met them, if someone was gay,
I would probably punch him out.
[Luis] We saw a leather jacket with lots of colors on it...
and he had blond hair.
You know we were so fierce and flamboyant ourselves that, you know,
that’s the first thing we noticed.
You know, the other flamboyant person.
Come to find out that the other flamboyant person was not even gay.
Of course, everything’s color-coordinated.
The sad part is I have more clothes than my wife.
The good thing is my wife is not materialistic.
Her ring is simple, our life--
Well, her life is simple. My life isn’t.
I’m-- I’m just that person. I’ve always been like that.
But name a person--
Name a person, name a guy that has pink suede Adidas.
That’s right.
[Luis] He certainly didn’t look like a homophobe,
as, I mean, not the way he was dressed.
You know, how can you be homophobic?
I mean...
y-you look like a parrot.
[Luis] When you’re thrusted into this situation,
it is almost like a fishbowl situation.
You know, we’re here and then it’s everybody else on the outside.
[cheering]
[Kevin] It’s a wave of--
It’s a physical wave. It’s a wind of screams.
A gale, like a hurricane of screams and voices, like, hitting you palpably.
It’s not like you just hear it in the distance.
It’s like hitting you in your face.
It was crazy, you know.
Not only did we see “We love Madonna” signs out there,
but we saw, you know, “We love Kevin,” “We love Carlton,”
“We love Luis and Jose,” “We love--” you know...
in the audience.
[woman] This the first of eight sellout shows
that Madonna will be performing in the New York area
over the next two weeks.
And like everything else that Madonna does,
this tour is high on shock value.
Spokesmen for rock singer Madonna say
metro police and the criminal attorneys office
threatened to arrest the star last night for lewd and obscene behavior.
[Madonna] I am aware that the Vatican and certain Catholic communities
are accusing my show of being sinful and blasphemous.
That they are trying to keep people from seeing it.
Hi, guys. Welcome.
Welcome to the home I grew up in.
Okay, come in.
This is the room where I stay at now. It’s now like the junk room.
-Oh, hi. I’m Jimmy. -This is Jimmy, my boyfriend.
-Hi. -His big head.
Okay. And come this way.
And this-- this is my mom back there.
Mom? [speaking Spanish]
-Hi. -That’s my mom. Come on out, please.
-Hi. -And that’s the lady, people.
[speaking Spanish]
She’s saying when we were in Europe--
Uh-huh. [speaking Spanish]
that she saw it on the news--
[speaking Spanish]
that everyone would call her or--
[speaking Spanish]
She’s--
She’s saying that is was a very big deal. It was very controversial, everything.
And they were saying how we were Hispanics.
And being that we were-- me and Luis were from the Hispanic community--
it was a very big deal.
So they would call her, you know,
and when she would go out shopping to the grocery store,
they’re like, “Oh, my God. We saw your son. Big controversy.
He almost got arrested in Europe for being whatever or whatever.”
[Madonna] By the time we left Japan,
I found myself growing really attached to the dancers,
and I started feeling like a mother to them.
Gabriel, since you never give me any attitude,
you get the oldest and most valuable one.
Thank you.
Oh, rest in peace. Oh.
Love him. [smacks lips]
Love him so much.
These two took care of me: Kevin and Gabriel.
They really looked after me when I was on tour.
’Cause they knew where I came from.
Everybody knew what I was about and where I came from,
but they always had my back.
I’m not saying that the rest of my boys and girls didn’t have my back,
but I was a baby.
If I can manage to get down back through my shoes.
I have a problem I’d say.
What have we got here?
Some pictures from the tour.
Um... there’s Gabriel.
There’s Gabriel.
There I am.
[Kevin] He was the unofficial favorite child.
There was something about him that was just, um, peaceful.
Like always, like, this peaceful, bright presence.
-Oh, here’s my Christmas present. -[man] What’s that?
My Christmas present from Madonna. Years ago.
-[man] What does it say? -“For my darling little Asian beauty.
Kevin, baby, grab life by the balls and don’t let go.”
I’d call them my first family.
You know, besides my-- my, you know, blood relatives,
they’re definitely my first family that I really bonded with.
’Cause it was a very formative part of my life.
My mom was kind of absent at that point.
So, uh, having Madonna around really...
did sort of fill that space for me, you know,
and I think for her too.
She wanted kids and I sort of-- Not that I wanted a mom, but I certainly--
I liked having somebody that would sort of--
I knew I could rely on her.
[Jose] It was like a friendship-motherly-instinct she felt.
You know, when you’re in that element of being a superstar like that,
it’s very hard to find the truth.
And-And kids can be very honest.
And gay kids can be very, very honest and flamboyant.
We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!
There was a lot of misunderstanding towards the gay community at that time,
and, you know, it wasn’t readily accepted.
It got fun for a little bit, you know, the gay scene,
but then, like, with AIDS coming out and HIV,
everyone got really scared.
I think it was a time where, um...
something new was needed.
Something new and artistic.
Something out of the norm.
It was timing more than anything in the ’90s.
I think it was the time when the world was ready for it.
And it would take somebody like Madonna to bring that to the forefront.
Well, get ready, America. Here comes Truth or Dare.
Madonna’s Blond Ambition tour this summer turned heads worldwide.
Her documentary on the tour is just as steamy
as this exclusive first look indicates.
[man] Truth or Dare is shot documentary style.
Some of the more revealing scenes are those featuring pillow talk
with her backup singers and dancers.
There are even scenes with two men kissing.
One of the larger purposes of the film really was to kind of...
again, push buttons.
Do we want to be accepted by Hollywood?
No!
Do we care what people think of us?
No!
Our first guests are two of the men who started the vogue craze.
They are Madonna’s lead dancers, also featured in the film Truth or Dare.
This is Luis and Jose! Come on out!
[applauding]
-[cheering] -[man] All right.
Jose and Luis.
Madonna, as these gentlemen have attested,
gets to people in the current order and is setting a tone that is destructive.
If you look at our society right now, American Western society,
we’ve really become a nation of sexual dysfunctionals.
Your fans will love the film. Some people are gonna find sections of it offensive.
-Well, that’s their problem though. -You don’t care?
No, of course not, because, see, these things exist in life.
I’m only presenting life to people, you know.
I am not presenting anything that probably they’re not exposed to, you know,
in everyday life, but maybe they don’t want to deal with it.
You know, if you keep putting something in somebody’s face,
eventually, you know, maybe they can come to terms with it.
[Salim] We were ourselves really. Yeah, and we didn’t care.
We were just ourselves in the movie and in the tour.
Yeah. That helped her, I think, reach her goal more too,
of the barriers she wanted to break at that time.
-Slam, truth or dare? -Dare.
Whoo!
French... kiss... Gabriel.
Okay!
[woman] He’s up. He’s up and he’s ready.
[all shouting]
Work it! Work it!
They wanted that.
-Whoo! Grab that head! -Oh, yeah! Get it done.
It’s a hot kiss. It’s, like, I’m sorry.
If you see that even as a straight guy, I mean,
you wanna kiss a guy after you see that kiss.
You know, it’s a hot kiss.
And I do think that it has helped in general,
that it does-- has helped a lot of guys or girls
be more comfortable about their sexuality.
[no audible dialogue]
It’s hard to hear yourself. Can you hear me out there?
[cheering]
Good. Finally a great audience.
Somebody very special just walked in.
A dancer from Madonna’s Blond Ambition tour!
[cheering]
So glad you’re here.
Make some noise, Stonewall!
[cheering]
[Kevin] This sort of daring and progressive message in this movie
was that you can be gay and human.
Because up to this point,
being gay was to be the other and be subversive and perverse.
And all of a sudden, there’s this huge message
that you can be gay and happy and successful
and be full of life and be young, you know.
You didn’t have to be hiding in the back alley
of some sleazy bar somewhere
and hiding out and married and pretending and--
You could be yourself and happy and-and still be gay.
I remember watching this movie when I was, like, in middle school,
and it was the first--
You know, this was before the Internet.
I rented it from the video store,
and it was like the first time that I saw like... gay people.
Like, real, like, gay people, just talking un-- uncensored,
like, being themselves
and with this, you know, amazing woman
who sort of was like, “Yeah, it’s all cool.”
I want to be like those guys.
I want to, like...
be that sort of free and open and-and-and, you know.
Like... you know.
I saw two men kiss for the first time, and I knew that I was okay with that.
I grew up in Michigan in the Midwest on a farm.
So when I saw the gay kiss, it was the first time I’d ever seen that,
and it was very liberating for me.
I got this...
right at the beginning of the-- this new year.
December 30, 2014.
“Hi there, Luis.
I just wanted to let you know that as a gay kid growing up
in a rough part of East LA,
I looked up to you so much.
I’ll never forget my mother taking me to watch Truth or Dare
after school when I was in sixth grade.
And watching you and the other dancers on stage with Madonna,
I was so relieved that finally I could identify with someone
and that all would be okay.
I learned all your moves. LOL.” [chuckles]
“You guys were and still are my heroes.
You gave me hope when there was none. Thank you, Luis.”
“While flipping channels on TV last night,
I stumbled upon a random showing of the movie Truth or Dare.
I was instantly taken back to my youth
and everything I was dealing with at that point in my life.
I grew up in a very small, homogenous town.
This movie suddenly opened up a world of possibilities for me.”
Wow. Growing up in the Midwest, yeah.
And then the whole thing-- I mean, my father was a very strict Muslim.
You know, also, I mean, that was also a time I remember
when he moved in with us for a while, that I had to like to--
Because I used to have Barbies too.
That was great. I loved Barbies when I was little.
And I actually could buy them with my mom.
But when my father came in the picture for a couple years,
um, I had to kind of hide them, yeah, but I never threw them away.
But I hide them somewhere. Yeah, I remember that actually now, yeah.
Then when my mom and dad split up,
I could totally like play with them again and do more girlie things, yeah.
Estoy caliente.
[cheering]
¿Estáis calientes?
- ¡Sí! - ¿Sí?
¡Sí!
Whoo!
Oh, my God!
Oh, rubbers! Condoms, I mean!
-Hey. -Hi, you guys!
-Hey, truth or dare? -Truth or dare?
Truth or dare?
You want to fuck us?
[laughing]
You never really get to know a guy until you ask him to wear a condom.
-That’s right! -That’s right!
Hey, you! Don’t be silly! Put a condom on your willy!
-[music starts] -Okay?
At the time that we had the tour, I think,
these issues of homosexuality, gay rights and AIDS prevention
and sexuality and sexual power,
I think they were all in the forefront of her mind,
because-- because of her friends’ deaths, you know.
[Madonna] Now, you probably know Keith Haring as an artist.
But I know him as a man who had the courage to tell the truth.
The truth is, he was gay.
The truth is, he had AIDS...
and he said so to anybody who would listen.
In memory of Keith, let’s tell ourselves the truth.
Let’s tell it to each other.
Let’s face it together.
I learned so much. Man, I learned so much from them.
I thank the Lord. Madonna-- I got on tour with her,
because I went from being homophobic to loving everybody.
I know that they may not be aware of it, but so many years have gone by...
but, yeah, I carry them in a very special place, those guys.
You don’t think about the moment when that it’s over that it’s over.
And it’s a hard knock down. I’m sorry. It’s very hard, yeah.
That’s why I was so emotional at the end to the movie. Crying, yeah.
Great time...
with each other.
Growing up with each other, like--
like we grew up together, it felt like.
In a such short period of time.
Such a symbolic-- we were so young-- symbolic time for me.
I can imagine for them, growing up, so young.
Each one of us would have taken a bullet for each one of us.
For each person. That’s how close we were.
I wanted it to continue forever, you know.
Who wanted to get off that ride? Not me.
[cheering]
Strike a pose.
[cheering]
[chuckles]
And good.
Better. Yeah.
Good. Ho, ho.
Nice. A little right. Good.
You know, you’ve had a tough life and very hard to break
and some energy kind of taking over you.
That’s nice, Jennifer, yes. Good.
[Salim] The movie Truth or Dare, that was the backstage reality
of what was going on on the tour,
but then there was a whole other backstage that you didn’t get to see.
And that obviously that none of us was ready to talk about.
Wow.
[Carlton] When you look in the mirror, before I go do the show,
back then, I’m looking at myself going,
“You know that you’re a liar.”
Nobody in that crew, in that team, nobody knew my secret.
He’ll be in there in a moment, okay? All right.
Ahh.
Okay.
What do you look for when you just do that?
So a lot of things.
I’m looking at what’s going on inside your mouth.
Um, just anything specifically.
Um, looking at your throat.
Um, specifically related to HIV.
Um, you look at, uh, the edges of the tongue,
’cause there’s something that people get called hairy leukoplakia.
-Um... -What does that look-- What is that?
It’s like little white sort of growths along the side of the tongue. Swallow.
[Carlton] I had gotten, like, a cramp
or something was happening with my body when we were in Japan.
And I went to the doctor that they sent me to,
and they saw something off
and they said they were going to have to tell her.
And I was like, “There’s no fucking way you will tell them anything.”
I was petrified after that.
You know, you never really get to know a guy
until you ask him to wear a condom.
-That’s right! -That’s right!
Hey, you! Don’t be silly! Put a condom on your willy!
[Carlton] The irony for me was, like, I’m in a production to express yourself.
I wasn’t really being that at all with myself.
I like this a lot.
Of course, he looks so happy, and he was still in favor.
I just hope that he’d be remembered for, you know, his-- his dancing.
But, um, it’s unfortunate that he’ll be remembered for the Truth or Dare scene.
-[man] The kiss? -The kiss, yes.
[all shouting]
[woman] He was embarrassed and he was, um,
ashamed of being caught off guard like that.
He wasn’t there yet. He wasn’t ready.
He wasn’t holding that flag and trying to make it more acceptable to anyone.
He just wanted to live his life and not, um...
uh, be an advocate for something.
It wasn’t a statement that he wanted to make.
It was-- It was her statement.
[Kevin] She loved Gabriel.
I don’t think it was ever her intention to hurt him.
- She liked him too much. -[no audible dialogue]
I just think life is unfair.
Like, here I am, this person everybody thinks I have everything I want, right?
I want you and can’t have you.
He begged her not to use it,
and, um, she just wouldn’t, uh, relent.
This is, um, Gabriel’s lawsuit against Madonna.
This is the deposition that was given under oath to the lawyers.
“Before this, at least, you wouldn’t look at me and say ‘He’s gay.’
You would have no idea I was
unless you were a close friend or I chose to tell.
During dinner at a restaurant,
I was telling her how this is hurting me emotionally,
that it was a problem.
This is when she told me I’m just ashamed of myself.
Question: She said you were ashamed of yourself?
Answer: Yes, she told me I was ashamed of myself.
She told me to get over it.”
[Maury Povich] Please welcome Madonna’s dancers from Truth or Dare,
Kevin Stea and Oliver Crumes
and the attorney representing them in their lawsuit, Debra Johnson.
Oliver and I were in the same boat.
It was literally the clause in our contract.
Gabriel, however, was in a very unique position.
He was basically suing for forced outing.
Gabriel is not here today. He’s the third dancer
-who’s-who’s also involved in this suit. -Exactly.
Along with Oliver and Kevin.
We’ve been pursuing this since the moment we got off tour. Since--
[Kevin] The clause is for a certain amount of money to be paid for us.
No, not really. I just feel that, um--
We weren’t in court, but we was in this office.
And there was me, Kevin and Gabriel and Madonna sitting across from us.
And I just-- I felt bad, but I’m looking at her, like, going, “Really, Madonna?”
I mean, do we have to go through this, you know?
And her look on her face was like, “How could you guys do this to me?”
But we’re looking like,
“Well, in a way...
if it wasn’t for us...
there would be no movie.”
-Did you ever try to work it out? -Yes.
What did she say to you?
I sent her a very personal letter saying that I wanted to talk.
I wanted to negotiate. I loved her and missed her and I wanted to see her again.
And the response I got was, “You’re on my... list.”
Yeah, this is--
Oh, wow!
All this stuff. Photos.
Ah.
This is it. This is recording artist Jose & Luis.
Huh? Queen’s English.
Yeah.
[Luis] As soon as we got to New York,
we were riding this local celebrity fame kind of thing.
And so we decided to, you know-- to do a record.
[dance]
-♪ Hey, Luis ♪ -♪ Yeah? ♪
-♪ Introduce yourself ♪ -♪ All right ♪
♪ Introduce yourself ♪
♪ All right, my name is Luis ♪
♪ I come from downtown ♪
♪ And I get down ♪
♪ And I know it ♪
[Luis] She helped us. She did, you know, some backup vocals for us.
Which was great. I mean, she was really generous.
[Madonna] ♪ If you can’t speak Queen’s English ♪
♪ If you can’t read Queen’s English ♪
♪ If you can’t speak Queen’s English ♪
♪ Then just live it ♪
[Luis] It’s easy to, uh,
lose touch with reality when you’re living in this kind of, like,
celeb bubble.
Life got in my way.
I think Luis got in my way.
[indistinct]
Hey, is that the material babe right there?
[Oliver] When I got off the tour, I was bigheaded.
I walked around like my shit didn’t stink. I’m not gonna lie.
Even when I moved to Vegas in ’94, I was the man.
I was in my show Splash.
One of the best dance shows that was-- that was in Vegas.
They had a Madonna impersonator.
I got to perform and choreograph my spot.
I used to come down here every night. I never missed a club, ever.
I went to clubs. Everybody knew me.
It was wonderful. I didn’t had to pay for drinks.
I was drinking very heavily.
I would, every day, buy a bottle of vodka.
I would go buy the cheapest vodka. I didn’t even care.
[Salim] You just go out, you know, with Jose.
We partied a lot. We would just go out. We go to a club.
Hang out with the House of Xtravaganza. We could have a little house party there.
And then we just go all over town and party, yeah.
When you’re in that-- in that bubble,
you just don’t take care about anything, you don’t care about anybody.
[Luis] In the beginning, it was very glamorous.
And everybody is beautiful and looks beautiful and wears expensive clothes.
And we are in expensive settings.
And so, you know, the drugs look glamorous.
As soon as the drugs become more important...
the less glamorous they become.
And so you start doing it in less glamorous places.
It got as bad as, you know, me living in an apartment,
you know, with two crates and a television...
and a closet full of expensive clothes.
[Salim] I was very mean.
I don’t want to see this one. I don’t care about that one.
Just cutting off your feelings. That’s what I did.
I didn’t care about anybody. I just lived in the moment,
doing all those things that I always did just not to think about anything.
[man] That sounds like you almost don’t have a life.
Yeah, it wasn’t a life. It wasn’t a life. It was going out partying.
Sometimes, you know, I didn’t have the funds, so I would go out too.
Oh, it was just terrible. And then sometimes, you know,
just not having a place to sleep neither and then, you know, I would--
I could always in the club.
I was like, “Please, let me find somebody where I could crash.”
It’s mostly because I had a lot of friends and I could crash somewhere.
But a lot of times, I had no place to live neither. It was horrible.
It was such a-- And I didn’t-- What I’m gonna do? Call my mom?
“Listen, Mom, I don’t have anywhere to live.”
You know, so I never wanted to-- I think I did it not to hurt her neither.
But I was hurting her much more by not telling her what actually was happening.
[woman] I remember sending him off to New York and just crying in the car,
that he was at risk.
And, uh...
what-- what did I need to tell him?
What else was there to say?
“Be careful.”
And yet it didn’t work.
[Kevin] I didn’t know that Gabriel was HIV positive or had AIDS,
’cause he didn’t say it.
When I went to Italy, I had called quite often from the set.
Like, after the show, I would call, almost every Sunday.
And then I called and his mom answered.
And I said, “Oh, is Gabriel there?”
She said, “No, and he never will be again.”
And I was like, “What?
What are you telling me right now?”
He didn’t tell me until he couldn’t not tell me anymore and...
I-- It-It-It was a gift, but in a way,
but one that I regret that he had to, um...
you know, that he-- that he had to, uh, keep it a secret,
and what that must have felt worrying about having to tell.
It was terrifying.
It was terrifying enough to scare people into silence.
It was a silent battle that-that you carried by yourself.
Some days I’d come in and he’d be crying,
and... he’d be, you know, uh...
just inconsolable...
and-and scared of, you know, being in pain and...
Um...
Just worrying about what was next, what was gonna happen next.
And he just became, you know, less...
You know, I remember him talking to the dogs,
and he said the dogs stopped listening to you
because your voice changes when you get that sick
and you don’t have the power in your voice.
And so you become a different person.
And the dogs picked up and they wouldn’t listen to him,
’cause they could tell he was sick.
And-- And, uh...
So in every way he changed, you know.
And from this, you know, beautiful, robust...
young man to this, you know, sickly creature.
[no audio]
[man] Do you think Gabriel knew he was HIV positive during the tour?
[mother] Yeah, I think he did.
Yeah.
It was hard for Gabriel to, um, be honest about being gay
and then honest about being infected.
So he had to keep a big part of himself closeted.
And so there’s that irony with the message of the, uh, tour.
But when he was dancing, he was able to really be loose,
and it was a safe way to-- to be expressive.
So I think he took refuge in dance
as a way to be himself
without having to reveal these other things.
Sorry.
Okay.
[man] What are you thinking about?
[sniffles]
Just Gabriel and Carlton.
Okay.
[man] Do you wish they had told you?
Yeah, ’cause it’d have been okay.
It’d have been okay.
[pills rattling]
[man on TV] And-- And move on.
Because there’s such a great, great power in learning to love.
[Oprah Winfrey] Well, that is our show for tonight.
Tweet me or e-mail us.
Who would you like to see on Where Are They Now?
Thanks for watching. We’ll see you next week.
[Carlton] When I got diagnosed in 1985,
you know, I already had a massive loop for--
85, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1990-- five years.
I was just ramped with, you know, fear and hatred of those lepers.
That’s what it felt like.
The internal storm was just trying
to fake your way to be accepted.
Faking that you’re strong. Faking that you are confident.
Faking that you think you look good.
Faking that you believe people really care about you.
Faking almost all of it.
[man] I wanna go over a few of the--
just a couple of the people that you’ve worked with in your long career.
Prince, Ricky Martin, Janet Jackson, David Bowie,
Céline Dion, George Michael, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé.
But I do want to go over--
How did it come about that you even started working with Madonna?
I think a lot of people know you best
from, you know, the Blond Ambition tour and Truth or Dare.
So how...
[Kevin] I started getting quite depressed about the whole situation.
As much as I would try to just sort of like push it to the background
and ignore the lawsuit or what happened,
um, she’s the most visible person in the world.
[chuckles] Like, everywhere.
You know, on every cover of every magazine.
There are pictures of her everywhere. People talking about her all the time.
People coming to me to talk about her all the time.
And what came up-- Whenever she came up in conversation
was that somebody in the world is mad at me.
I suffered a lot over not having her in my life.
You know, not as a boss,
but literally just as a person in my life
that I admired and loved and could relate to.
Corner.
Soup?
[Oliver] I almost lost my family. I had to beg for my family back.
My mother, my father, my brother and sister.
Um, because I act like I was all that.
I did the right thing. I stopped drinking.
But then I was-- ’Cause it was gonna be cold turkey. So...
But obviously, you know-- ’Cause years later he got...
-Oh. In 2006. -...what they called Bell’s palsy.
And sometimes you can see it.
So when you smile, you can kind of see that this part is not as big
and that eye is really squinted sometimes, especially when he gets tired.
It’s the nervous system, you know, and--
Two times in my life something bad happened.
They told him and me, “Oh, it’s just something that can happen.
One out of a hundred people get it.”
It can happen to anybody.
However, we always think it’s probably because you had the seizures,
and your nervous system was in shock, you know.
But it can happen to you right now, as we’re talking.
They say anybody-- No, you kind of have-- you wake up with it.
You wake up with it. My bad.
Or you have a dramatic moment
and your face can kind of pause in one spot.
And it-- And...
-The whole face. -Yeah.
I woke up--
-He couldn’t blink his eye. -I couldn’t blink my eye.
I woke up, you know, talking like this.
[Salim] Hey, how are you?
-Good class. -Thank you.
Hey. How are you?
How is everybody?
-[woman singing an aria] -And pull it up again.
One more time, all the way down.
And plié.
Slowly roll it up again.
Stay in a plié. Push your hips all the way forward.
Good.
And roll it up again. Last variation.
All the way down.
It’s hard because I never talked about it before,
and this is the first time, so... [sobs]
Also, um, in 1987--
Uh, must have been, like, around in, uh--
uh, must be around December,
uh, I wasn’t feeling well, and it was something with my kidneys.
And I was already in New York.
And I didn’t have insurance here, so I went to Belgium to get checked,
and it was something with my kidney, but they fixed it and it was all okay.
They did some drainage or something, and they said it was no problem.
But for some reason the day before I left, I got another call,
and they asked me to come back to the hospital
because they wanted to talk to me.
And I was like, “Oh, well, that’s odd.”
So me and my mom went.
I don’t remember where the hospital is in.
It was close to Antwerp. And I went to the hospital.
I remember me and my mom going into the room
and the doctor talking to us,
and that’s where he told me, “Yeah, I’m sorry, sir,
but I’m sad to tell you that you’re HIV.”
When you have somebody telling you,
“You know, listen, you’re only going to live five to 10 years”--
I mean, everybody was dropping like flies.
I totally blanked it out. I didn’t want to talk about it.
My mom promised me she wouldn’t tell anybody,
so it was just between us two.
Even till to this day, nobody knows, you know.
No, I’ve always kept it a secret.
It was such a dark, dark time in my life. So dark. Dark.
It brought me to so many, like, dark places too, you know.
And not be able to work and the partying
and just like, “Am I going to get sick?”
And then this friend dies and that one dies, you know.
And then I’m losing weight. “Wait. Am I okay?”
Constantly looking at myself. “Oh, my God, do I look sick?”
And no outlet, you know.
That was always the hardest, you know. It was hard.
And sometimes--
You know, no place to live too, you know. It was terrible, you know.
But still, I didn’t want to leave this country.
What was I going to do, go back to Belgium and do what? You know.
And I didn’t call my mom.
It’s like, “Hey, Mom, look, I’m doing a lot of drugs, you know.
And now--
Sorry, Mom. I know.”
I’m doing this too because I think a lot of people are probably in this situation
or have been in this situation, you know.
And even if I can touch one person, you know, it would mean the world to me,
because I know it’s a bitch.
And if you have nobody-- And I’m a strong person, you know,
and I think I survived it too because I’m strong.
But not everybody is strong like that,
because it fucks with your head very badly.
[man] Bring it back down.
Nice. Chin down. Get that little smile in the eyes.
-[camera shutter clicking] -What’s your secret?
Tip your head a little straighter.
Right there. Chin down even more. Good.
-[camera shutter clicks] -Stay there.
Even after my show with her was done, I was still in fake mode, you know.
But I was still in the world, even though the tour has ended.
I’m still in the world trying to represent what they saw me as,
which was super Iron Man.
Kill it all and knock it all down.
When I knew that I wasn’t that. I knew that I wasn’t that.
’Cause when I had my other moments, I was petrified.
And I was proving that I was weak because I wasn’t standing up for myself.
That’s been a very, um...
gripping thing to have to undo.
From me to me.
[no audio]
If I was rested in who I was,
it wouldn’t matter to get excessive attention all the time.
At a restaurant. You know?
I’m at a restaurant with you, but then, who’s that over there?
And I’ve got to be super charming so they say something,
and then I gotta give somebody else a something so they are locked in on me.
That’s a lot of fucking stuff.
It was really interesting to watch myself crumble into nothingness.
With, like, being afraid to go out.
I mean, I literally just became so small.
[crowd cheering on video]
[Madonna] I love you too. I wanted to say something.
Oh, my God, I look so uncomfortable.
Nails.
...who was a friend of mine who died of AIDS a couple of months ago.
Now, you probably know Keith Haring as an artist.
-[crowd cheering] -The face already. I look petrified.
...who had the courage to tell the truth.
The truth is, he was gay.
The truth is, he had AIDS and he said so
to anybody who would listen.
In memory of Keith, let’s tell ourselves the truth.
Let’s tell it to each other.
[crowd cheering]
And can’t wait to get off.
[man] What do you think that the tour with Madonna has meant in Jose’s life?
[speaking Spanish]
She feels that I still should be dancing with her.
That I still should be there is what she feels.
And that’s when it was good.
[speaking Spanish]
She says-- She doesn’t under--
She’s saying that I should have just kept on dancing with Madonna, with everybody,
because I had a lot of opportunities.
And she says that the same door that I opened
is that I also closed on myself.
A month ago. It was a Saturday or Sunday.
And we-- I went over to her house by myself.
And... just hung out with her.
And we went to the store to buy magazines.
And we got photographed. It was like a paparazzi moment.
I think that was one of the last times I saw her,
you know, when all that was going down.
You know, the heroin and all that stuff was going down.
She told me that, um, you know--
that I need to get help,
that we-- that we need to get help.
But, um, more importantly, that I needed to get help.
And, you know...
that’s one of the reasons why she started to...
slowly back away from us.
I think that’s the moment I realized,
“Oh, no, I don’t think I’m going to, you know, be seeing her.”
And there was something in my consciousness
or in my, you know-- in the back of my consciousness
that says this is where it starts to...
fade.
[speaking Spanish]
She’s saying when I was little--
Uh-huh.
One time she saw a picture of a house in a postcard,
and she had shown it to me,
saying this is the house that one day you will buy me.
[speaking Spanish]
And then it bothered her because she thought that those...
[speaking Spanish]
She thought that I had an opportunity to could give her that.
[speaking Spanish]
Saying that I did so much, done so many big things.
And she’s saying that I should have just continued.
I never got to get her that house.
[speaking Spanish]
She said that that bothered her a lot.
’Cause she’s saying that I could have had that, such a great opportunity.
And she feels-- still wants that house one day.
[man] What does your mother think that went wrong with you?
She doesn’t even know what went wrong.
She just knows that a lot of things.
I just disappeared and went off and lived my life, you know.
And, like, she doesn’t even know the half of a lot of the things, you know.
[speaking Spanish]
[man] She would have wanted you to continue.
To continue my career that I studied since a kid.
-Do you feel the same way? -Yeah.
I would be stupid not to.
Absolutely.
[speaking Spanish]
-She’s saying-- -What do you think that happened--
Why weren’t you able to continue that path?
I wasn’t unable to continue because I became insecure.
I became hurt of so many things in love and in life.
You know?
Started to doubt myself about things
and wondering if I was going to die next and things like that.
You know?
Yeah, there was a very dark moment.
But I was very, like, strong
in the sense that I would never let anyone know what I was going through.
A lot of the times, you know.
Never mind that my mom-- I was never--
I had left, so-- You know.
I didn’t feel--
I felt because of the fact that I wasn’t able to succeed,
I had messed everything up.
There was no point in me being around.
So I disappeared for a period of time.
Brisé, jeté, jeté, assemblé.
Tours en, tours en.
Ah, ah, ah, ah. Ah, ah.
Attitude and attitude.
Ta-da!
My bow.
Right?
[man] And still so many people saw you and got inspired to be--
Still in awe. Still in awe.
I was like, “How is that possible
that so many people can be so inspired by me?”
You know?
Those weren’t my intentions at all-- to move so many people.
And at the time I didn’t realize it.
Till much later on in life, I didn’t realize what I had done.
I said, “Wait a minute. You actually have touched people with what you’ve brought.”
-Is that comforting now in a way? -Oh, yeah.
If I have nothing else...
that to me is enough.
[no audio on video]
[sighs]
[chattering]
Carlton.
[chuckles]
[hands clap]
-Shut the fuck up. -How are you?
-[kisses] -Oh, my God!
Slam!
Carlton, how are you?
Jesus! Hi, grown man. Look at you.
Ahh!
-It’s bachelor number three. -Hi, brother!
Luis!
[Carlton] Oh, my God!
-How are you? -I’m good. It’s so good to see you.
-How are you? -Good.
Take your glasses off. I want to see your eyes.
No. Joking.
Oh, my God.
[Carlton] Wow!
Hi, baby. How are you?
-Who is this? -[all] Aw!
[Carlton] Little jazz hands.
Oh, my God!
-Baby! -What’s up?
Oh, my God!
Like him.
Oh, my goodness.
Wait a minute. Wait. Hold up.
Jose!
-Wow! -Oh, my God!
[Carlton] You look beautiful.
-Oh, my God! -Hi, baby.
-Oh, my God. I love your jacket. -Jose.
[Carlton] It’s a beautiful jacket.
How are you?
-Jose. -Jose.
[Kevin] Oh, you smell delicious.
[Carlton] Oh, my God, dude. So good to see you.
Oh!
Hi, buddy.
I’m like, look at this grown man.
-[Salim] We all got-- We grew up. -Oh, my God, we grew up.
[Carlton] Cheers!
-[all] Cheers! -Wow.
[Jose] To family and brotherhood, right?.
-And sisterhood. With the exception of... -Let me tell you--
No numbers tonight.
What is it, like, 25 years?
Can’t we just say it’s a long time?
I get the message that’s saying-- all of you guys--
-That tour changed my life. -[Salim] I know. I know.
That movie changed my life.
Each one of you guys. I mean--
-[Salim] I know. No, it’s true. -We weren’t aware of it though.
-[Oliver] We weren’t-- We weren’t-- -I wasn’t aware of it neither.
I had to do a lot of shit. That one finger was wrong, and she would, like, flip out.
Same shit. Yeah, yeah.
[all laughing]
[chattering]
No, one night he was like, “I can’t see her hand.
I can’t see her hand.” I’m like, “Really?”
[chattering]
[Carlton] What was life like for you?
Like, how-- Did you feel a drop out, or was it challenging, or...?
It was weird. I felt like, because I started auditioning again,
but I felt like every time I walked into an audition,
I never walked into an audition as a regular dancer again.
It was always as a Madonna dancer.
And then they hated me for no reason. They didn’t know who I was.
-Or they hated her. -[Jose] Or loved you.
So I never walked into an audition again just as a good dancer.
-[Jose] As a regular dancer. -It was always that connected.
And it opened a lot of doors, but it was also a curse at the same time.
I would like for her to be here because it wasn’t just like--
It was more--
It wasn’t just like dancer and pop star, dancers working for a pop star.
-It got-- You know, like-- -[Oliver] Deeper.
Yeah, it got deeper. Exactly.
We became a family, and we were all young.
And for all of it to happen
and for then not to be anything after that,
whether it is to say, “Oh, you fucked up”
or, “You guys are a mess and I just couldn’t deal with you and your antics
and you and Luis and you guys.
It got too much. They sued me, and I was”--
-Something. You know, just not nothing. -[Salim] Yeah, yeah.
I don’t feel like I have any-- I have no ill will to her at all.
I think the biggest shame or thing that I miss is the love.
I really do love her and I always have, and I’ve never said a bad word about her.
And I wish she was here
simply because I feel like it would be lovely to have the opportunity
to relate to her as an adult.
I don’t think she owes us any acknowledgement.
I think she gave us a fantastic opportunity.
And, you know--
I mean, we’ve lived our lives.
I’m not--
I’m just saying that she doesn’t really owe us anything.
-[Oliver] Anything. -You know what I’m saying?
I mean, what came out of that experience
was of our doing.
We became who we are today because of us.
You know what I’m saying?
And, you know, it was great that it happened with her.
It really was. It was a moment in time, you know.
And all the stars aligned correctly for me and Jose and for you guys.
I mean, you know, we were plucked out of nonexistence.
And we became--
-[Jose] Existence. -Existence.
[Oliver] Guys.
Gabriel, I love you, so I want you to hear this.
You changed my life.
You changed my life,
because I came from the hood, which y’aII don’t understand,
from New Orleans, not N’awlins.
New Orleans, in the Lafayette Projects.
It wasn’t...
part of I heard of-- of gays, whatever, this and that.
And to come into the world...
of you guys...
I am so blessed and I’m so thankful.
You guys are like family to me, you know.
And no matter how many years have gone by,
like, I sit here now
and it’s like I never left you guys.
And I just don’t know why I’m emotional.
It’s not out of sadness or anything.
It’s, like, overwhelmingly love.
[Oliver] It’s cool.
It’s a lot of love. That’s all it is.
There’s no sadness.
It’s just like you guys are my brothers.
-[Carlton] So truth or dare, mister. -[Kevin] Oh, my God.
Uh, truth or dare. Uh, truth.
[Carlton] Truth.
What’s been the--
What’s been the biggest thing of your life that you’ve had to overcome?
Uh, drugs and alcohol.
I think the only saving grace...
um, was my mom.
She sent me to Los Angeles to...
dry out.
And, um...
I was drying out off of heroin.
Heroin-- Heroin brought me to my knees.
Yeah.
Tell us what has been the greatest lesson you’ve learned in your life,
the greatest piece of wisdom that you’ve learned.
As far as what? Like--
[Kevin] That you’ve learned. You tell us. What stands out as...
-Not to judge, I think. -[Kevin] Hmm.
The greatest piece of wisdom, yeah, not to judge anybody, yeah.
And just knowing that everybody goes through something,
and everybody act at the end, you know--
Everybody’s going through something and not just really to judge them.
That’s the greatest thing, I think, I’ve learned in my life so far,
being 46 years old, yeah.
Truth, right?
If you--
Now that you’re in a slightly different place
around the whole gayness...
if you were to have sex with a man,
which guy at this table would it be?
-[laughter] -[Jose] Oh, my God.
Okay.
There’s no answer to that.
Let me finish. The reason why?
Because you, you, you, you, you and you are my brothers.
-Okay, but that’s not-- -No, no.
No, no, no.
The question is truth or dare.
-The game is Truth or Dare. -And you said truth.
-I said truth. -And I gave you a truth to answer.
-Yes. -Which one?
Not would you or wouldn’t you.
The question was, which one would you do if you had to?
-Okay. -[Kevin] Choose. Just choose.
-And why? -Okay. All of you.
No. Which one? One.
-[Salim] You can only pick one. -One.
-[Salim] And we’re not judging you. -Yeah.
-[Salim] Hypothetically speaking. -I got to go by one?
-[Salim] Yes. Just one. -Yes. And why.
[Jose] And why.
Gabriel.
[Jose] Okay. Why?
-Why? -[Kevin] Yeah.
[Kevin] Because he is forever younger than all of us.
[laughter]
-[Carlton] Why? -[Luis] Because he’s not here.
-[Carlton] Why? -No.
’Cause he was innocent.
-Hmm. -To me.
Okay.
[Luis] Slam, truth or dare?
[Oliver] He drunk. ’Cause you’re slurping.
[slurping]
Truth, truth. ’Cause I don’t want to kiss anybody, no.
You’re like all my sisters. I take truth.
You can take dare, and you can go ahead and kiss me. It’s okay.
No, no. I don’t want to kiss you. Look.
-I’ll take truth. -[Luis] All right.
What is your biggest fear?
[Kevin] Wow.
What’s my biggest fear? Uh...
Uh, to say it, I’m gonna look at Jose
because, you know, you give me the biggest strength always.
I think my biggest fear is and was--
was always to find out for people that I was HIV positive.
That has been my biggest fear.
I was diagnosed in 1987, yeah, being HIV positive.
And I think that was my biggest fear always--
for people to find out, yeah.
And I feel so, you know-- It’s like, I don’t know.
I never wanted to share this story with anybody else but you guys, you know.
I mean, I was, yeah, diagnosed in ’87,
and, you know, finally in 2015, you know, I just-- I want to be free, you know.
[Kevin] Oh, honey.
[sniffles]
You too. You too. You too.
-And, you know, it’s like three people. -[Kevin] Oh, my God.
I know. I know.
And it was my first sexual experience. Yeah.
’Cause, you know, I just didn’t know anything about it, yeah.
[Luis] Well, the good news is that you’re living proof
that it’s not a death sentence.
I know, and that’s why I’m telling my story
’cause, you know, I wanna share my story like Carlton, you know.
I just want to share with him, yeah, yeah.
-[sobbing] -I can’t believe we all heard this.
And I always wanted to tell somebody, you know--
-[Oliver] Oh, my God. Thank you. -But it’s hard, you know.
-[Oliver] Thank you. -And I never-- I never--
I just knew the moment would come.
I just, you know-- It was just never the right time, you know.
Can I say something to both of y’all outside of Truth or Dare?
With us.
Can I say something on the outside of this?
If this was before Madonna, I would be afraid of this.
I wouldn’t--
-Oh, my God. -[Luis] And how do you feel about it now?
Oh, my God. It’s a beautiful thing to come out and express yourself
because you’re holding something in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I just--
And-- Oh, my God, dude.
[Salim] Yeah. But at the same time, you know, it’s been a blessing, you know,
because it’s like-- it’s made me who I am, you know.
It just like-- It changed so many things.
But, you know, when that moment that you get diagnosed,
you know, it’s just like your whole world falls in, you know.
[Carlton] No, but I just want you to know
there is a massive degree of new light for all that you’re doing
that’s going to happen because you took this move today.
-Yeah. -It really is amazing, Slam.
-Thank you. -Yeah, absolutely.
[piano intro]
[man] ♪ There is a house built out of stone ♪
♪ Wooden floors, walls and window sills ♪
♪ Tables and chairs worn by all of the dust ♪
♪ This is a place where I don’t feel alone ♪
♪ This is a place where I feel at home ♪
Four, five!
Ha! I’m not mad at that!
If you gotta get another thing and you wanna get “vroom” as your last pose,
work it out.
♪ I ♪
♪ Built ♪
♪ A home ♪
♪ For you ♪
♪ For me ♪
You want it to read. Body language is everything, okay?
So come on. Let’s take it again.
Five, six,
five, six, seven,
and real slow,
slow, slow.
La, la.
Good. La, la.
Last one.
Be proud.
You know, be proud, whatever it is.
’Cause everyone is someone.
Yeah!
One of the things that we do every year
is to honor someone that grew up with Jazz Camp,
um, was a very important part of the legacy of this program:
Mr. Gabriel Trupin,
who was the son of our beloved Sue Trupin.
[applause]
♪ When the gusts came around to blow me down ♪
♪ I held on as tightly as you held on me ♪
♪ And I ♪
♪ Built ♪
♪ A home ♪
♪ For you ♪
♪ For me ♪
♪ Until ♪
♪ It disappeared ♪
♪ From me ♪
♪ From you ♪
♪ And now ♪
♪ It’s time ♪
♪ To leave ♪
♪ And turn ♪
♪ To dust ♪