“Baywatch” actor Alexandra Paul was pleased to assist her pal and costar Jaason Simmons again earlier than he might safely come out as homosexual.
Paul mentioned she was Simmons’ “beard” whereas speaking to Folks on the premiere of the upcoming docuseries “After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun,” on Monday, telling the journal she let tabloids suppose the 2 had been a pair throughout an period when it may very well be harmful to be out and proud.
“Back in the 1990s, 30 years ago, if you were a gay actor in Hollywood, not only would that affect your career negatively, but it could also affect you just out and about in the streets,” she mentioned. “You weren’t as safe.”
Paul mentioned Simmons was cautious to maintain his private life personal whereas he performed hunky Australian lifeguard Logan, a personality Paul described as “a heterosexual guy who wanted to be [with] every woman on the show.”
“That just shows what a good actor he is because yes, he was gay,” she mentioned. “He and I were very, very close on the show and I became his beard, so to speak.”
Ron Galella by way of Getty Photographs
Paul remembered being “so affectionate with each other” on set and off that it wasn’t too troublesome to fake they had been romantically concerned.
“We just let them think what they thought,” she recalled, including, “It was like people saw us together and then that started on its own. So, we just went along, because I was only 22, 23 at the time.”
Whereas Paul and Simmons had been maintaining their ruse, “After Baywatch” director Matthew Felker remembered that, within the ’90s, outing homosexual actors was “like a sport for paparazzi.”
“They hunted [Simmons] like an animal,” he advised Folks.
Simmons publicly got here out in 2008, asserting his relationship along with his then-fiancé, Irish actor John O’Callaghan, within the Australian journal New Thought.
In a 2014 interview with TooFab, the actor mentioned he was grateful for the way a lot his “Baywatch” castmates revered his privateness.
“Everybody knew, I just didn’t speak about my private life, I’m pretty shy and introverted,” he advised the positioning. “So to go in a show when you’re like that, it takes a lot of adjusting. I was like, baby steps. I was in a relationship for the whole time and they were all aware and it was fantastic and no issue.”
