RENT BOY BLOG SHUTS DOWN

The mystery author of the controversial rent boy blog has announced that he will shut down the website in which he published information about alleged celebrity clients.

Signing a statement published on the blog with the name ‘Skye’, he writes that he has come to an agreement with the legal representatives of five of his alleged former clients, who contacted him after the site’s existence hit the headlines.

According to the agreement, he will retract all information published and will not reveal any further details about the alleged clients. He will also refrain from contacting the media on the subject, and will not use any other website or blog to publish the information on his behalf.

All the names and information previously published on the blog has been removed.

Skye goes on to apologise to “the gay community of South Africa, the members of the GLA, the Crime Expo website and the families of the clients” that he named, and says that he regrets any hurt that he may have caused.

He nevertheless insists that his intentions were honourable: “I wanted to stop the selfish treatment inflicted on male sex-workers by well known people. I didn’t make any money or profit out of this and I have pulled out of a contract to take part in a TV programme.”

I am convinced that in time people will see that what I started doing was the right thing at the right time. I have no grudges against my former clients and needed to get this information out of my system. If this was the most ethical thing to do is debatable,” he adds.

The controversial Afrikaans blog, titled ‘SA Male Prostitute’, came to light in the last week and published claims by Skye that he serviced a number of South African male celebrities. He wrote that he had ended his career as a sex worker after 10 years, now lives in Australia, and decided to spill the beans on “about 50 well-known South African” clients.

He then began to name and reveal alleged intimate details about 16 public figures including a former Springbok rugby player, a fashion designer, high profile journalists, an actor, a singer, a politician and an Afrikaans preacher. Skye refused to reveal his identity.

“I have decided to speak out because the public does not have any idea about the double lives these people are leading. Most of them place themselves on pedestals while they taste the forbidden fruits between the sheets,” he wrote on the blog at the time.

A number of the named celebrities said that they would pursue civil and criminal actions against the blog and its author. There is still speculation that the author is none other than Juan Uys, the notorious head of the discredited Gay and Lesbian Alliance (GLA) and said to be behind the Crime Expo website.