Producers' shock call after gay reality star outed on straight dating show

Reality TV history has been made in this week’s episode of FBoy Island as Nathan Giastis became the first gay man to appear on a heterosexual dating show in Australia. The popular BINGE series, which is hosted by former reality star-turned-TV personality Abbie Chatfield, follows 24 men who are either ‘Nice Guys’ looking for love or ‘FBoys’ who are only there to play the game and win the $50,000 cash prize.

While the premise of the show centres around three women attempting to figure out the contestants' secret statuses, this week’s episode saw them try to identify if one of the men was actually gay. The women discovered during a social media stalk that Nathan’s TikTok, where he boasts over 41,000 followers, featured rainbow flag emojis, LGBTQIA+ hashtags, and jokes about women being disappointed that he isn’t interested in them.

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Nathan assured the women he was “100 per cent straight” when confronted about these findings, which then made them assume that he was “queerbaiting”. However, he eventually came clean during a one-on-one with Nicole Mitrov and confessed that he was “a gay FBoy”.

Although viewers assumed this would signal the end of his time on the dating show, he then convinced Nicole to let him stay so he could act as a ‘mole’ for the three women and identify who were the ‘FBoys’ and ‘Nice Guys’ on their behalf.

How did Nathan end up on the show?

Speaking with Yahoo Lifestyle about the huge plot twist and why he wanted to appear on the reality show, Nathan explains that he was scouted for FBoy Island on social media.

“I was approached by one of the producers on TikTok or Instagram. I definitely didn't apply for the show,” he laughs. “I would never see myself with a girl, but to be the elephant in the room and play some twists along the way, it's an experience and a half.

“There was a lot of doubt, especially being the first gay man on a straight dating show. But I just thought life's too short, have some fun, put yourself out there a bit, and enjoy what’s to come. You don’t know what comes from things like this, so taking opportunities like this is once in a lifetime.”

Nathan, who works as an electrician and is used to being “surrounded by straight guys all the time”, shares that his strategy during filming was to try and go unnoticed.

“The plan was just to be as low-key as possible because obviously I couldn't really be my true self,” he says. “I couldn't really be out there in that sense, so the gameplay was just fly under the radar.

“I honestly don't have too many guy friends, I have a lot of girlfriends, but fitting into that scene in the resort with all the guys was pretty chill. It wasn't too daunting, I was pretty calm and collected. I was always asked by producers, like, ‘Are you uncomfortable? Is this okay?’. Everything was chill, so being in that scenario was good.”

Why didn't Nathan clean up his social media?

The obvious question most viewers had after watching this week’s episode was why didn’t Nathan remove some of his social media posts if he was trying to act straight on the show - especially because the social media stalk happens every season.

“Originally, I was told to remove some things from social media, but then leading up to going onto the show I was told, ‘Oh no don't worry about it’,” he reveals.

“I didn't watch the previous season up to that stage where the social media laptop came out, so when Abbie walked in with the laptop, my heart just sank.”

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Why did Nathan stay on the show?

Nathan teases that viewers will have to stay tuned to see how the rest of his story arc unfolds, but he was thrilled he had the chance to stay in the competition and continue to make connections with the three women - albeit, more friendly than romantic.

“At that stage, if I could get the girls to find someone that potentially is a ‘Nice Guy’ and then fall in love, walk off the show and have them split the $25,000 each at the end, that would have been something more monumental to me than anything else,” he remarks.

“You've gotta stay tuned for the rest of the show, but what I can tell you is a lot of drama, a lot of twists, a lot of turns and a lot more to come.”

Season two of FBoy Island Australia is currently streaming on BINGE

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