Former tabloid fixture and reality TV star Fabián Basabe has reinvented himself as a Florida politician — and controversy is closely following.
After Florida State House Rep. Basabe was reportedly accused of slapping an aide at a reception following Gov. Ron DeSantis’ inauguration, which he denied, Basabe’s LGBTQ constituents are up-in-arms and calling him a hypocrite.
The activists are blasting Basabe as a phony after he voted to expand his state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Sources told Page Six locals are outraged, especially because “it’s common knowledge that he has long been in an open marriage with his wife, and identifies as a gay man,” they claim.
Basabe defended his vote, explaining, “I worked alongside the bill sponsor to ensure the language in no way targets the LGBTQIA+ community whom I love and live among.”
He also told us he identifies as “a father and as a man who is true to himself and represents the idea of living and loving as one is emotionally and heartfully guided,” when we reached out on Wednesday.
The party boy turned controversial politician has been married to La Perla heiress Martina Borgomanero since 2005, but allegedly lives with his longtime boyfriend, according to sources.
Basabe would not go into detail about his private life, but told us, “I am of an adult age, therefore entitled to live any lifestyle I choose as I reinforced by all this legislation we passed.”
Miami locals have been posting screenshots of Basabe frequenting gay bars and hanging out with drag queens in the past.
A 2017 photo of him kissing his partner at New York hotspot Omar’s has also resurfaced.
Outrage over the former TV star — of such long-forgotten reality shows as E!’s “Young, Rich and Famous” and “Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive,” which costarred Kourtney Kardashian and Brittny Gastineau — hit fever pitch when he appeared at a Pride parade last weekend, where protesters marched with signs that read: “Basabe betrayed his voters.”
“He campaigned on LGBTQ rights and people know him as being gay… It’s a huge slap in the face,” a source who attended the parade told us.
Basabe responded to the uproar by telling Miami’s CBS News affiliate, “people are misinformed.” “I’m going to help them find their way when I return from Tallahassee,” he said. “People need me and I will help them find truth in what’s really going on behind these advocacy groups.”
He told us he expected the crowds “because the agitators were promoting to their national base. Very few members of my actual district were there,” he claimed.
“I let everyone know they were loved, seen, heard, and terribly misinformed of the legislative process… Many didn’t even know why they were holding the sign, but followed the crowd in the noise,” he added.
In 2005, Basabe was called “a thoroughly polished 27-year-old known in gossip columns and New York’s upper-tier social scrum as Manhattan’s ‘It’ boy,” by the Washington Post.
The same piece called him, “a smiling and faddishly coiffed perennial on Manhattan’s good-life circuit, popping up at one charity event after another, high-fiving doormen in the city’s exclusive nightspots, hanging out with a pack of young trust-funders and Wall Street millionaires.”
We previously reported that Basabe was banned from Miami’s Bass Museum in 2019 when he was accused of calling a publicist the N-word, plus “peasant,” “whore” and “bitch.” The publicist alleged on Instagram, “I was just called a [N-word] peasant bitch and whore by Fabian Basabe — the flaming piece of s–t racist garbage.
Basabe denied using the N-word during the argument, telling Page Six at the time, “In passing, I said, ‘nice try, peasant.’ I 100 percent said it and will apologize for it.”
The alleged slap incident is under investigation, per a rep for Florida House Speaker Paul Renner. Basabe told CBS Miami that he was unaware of the investigation.
