Liberace's former lover Scott Thorson gave an interview to The New York Times from inside the Washoe County Jail after being charged with burglary and identity theft. Thorson bought $1,300 worth of computer equipment and cellphones with a credit card and licence that weren't his. His bail is set at $15,000, which he should be able to pay with the $100,000 he got for the rights to HBO's upcoming Liberace biopic, Behind the Candelabra, starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, based on Thorson's autobiography of the same name, but he has already spent his earnings on cars and jewellery, naturally.

Thorson is an intriguing and disturbed man who has been in and out of prison since his relationship with Liberace unceremoniously ended in 1982. He's no longer the teenaged stud who Liberace saved from abuse in the foster-care system, due to his cocaine, crack and meth addictions, and stage 3 colon cancer. Also responsible for the change in Thorson is the removal of the chin implant Liberace insisted he get when he was only 17 years old. According to Thorson, Liberace wanted a boy-toy and a son and hired a plastic surgeon to mould Thorson's face into Liberace's own image as a young man with enhanced cheek bones, a nose job and a chin implant. “I was 17 years old,” Thorson said of why he went along with the surgeries. “Liberace had taken me out of a situation with a father who was very abusive, a mother who was mentally ill. I did everything I possibly could to please this man."

Since entering the witness protection program in 1989 after testifying against a drug lord, Eddie Nash, Thorson has gone by the name Jess Marlow. It's yet another twist in the opulent and tragic story of his life, which has seen him in and out of prison and battling addictions he claims started when Liberace introduced him to the "Hollywood diet" of pills and cocaine to help him stay thin. 

Thorson has pleaded guilty to the latest charges of burglary and identity theft and has asked to be sent to a rehabilitation centre. Although Washoe County Jail has a television, it does not have HBO, so he will not be watching Behind the Candelabra. And he's bitter about it.

“All these people are getting rich from my story,” he said, “and here I sit.” 

Michael Douglas and Matt Damon in character as Liberace and Scott Thorson for Vanity Fair. 

Hollywood "doesn't know what to do" with the gays. Studios rejected the Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra, starring Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as his lover Scott Thorson. Hollywood rejected the script, but it was quickly picked up by HBO. Director Steven Soderbergh explains:

Nobody would make it. We went to everybody in town. They all said it was too gay. And this is after Brokeback Mountain, by the way, which is not as funny as this movie. I was stunned: It made no sense to any of us. This movie is a magnet for attention. The whole package . . . looked [to HBO] like a slam dunk, [but] the studios didn’t know how to sell it. They were scared.

I don't know why Hollywood is run by a bunch of pussies, but it is. Brokeback Mountain and Milk, both with entirely straight casts, are how gay cinema is identified, represented and summed up by Hollywood. They're filtering homosexuality by trying to make it safe for mainstream audiences and by doing so, wrongly imply there's something dangerous or illicit about gay storytelling. 

Our stories, of which we have many, are not just for us. If gay audiences can identify with straight characters and straight films, then straight audiences can identify with gay characters and films, too. The industry's fear is insulting to people's ability to feel.

So fuck Hollywood! I still haven't forgiven them for ruining Rock.