Manvendra Singh Gohil’s coming-out sent shock waves through India. Since then, he’s become a media darling, but can he find true love off-camera?
Tim Murphy writes:
Since he shocked and rocked India with his coming-out two years ago, he’s become a media sensation, and it’s already clear to me that he loves the adulation. In his own princely way, he might even be addicted to it -- a veritable Rajput media whore. But the prince, 42, says he wants love, and recently, I’m learning, it looks like he might have found it. The million-rupee question: Can he cool his love affair with the press long enough to nurture one with another man?
Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil (“Manav” to his friends), 39th in line to the throne of Rajpipla, a principality in the prosperous west–central Indian state of Gujarat, walks stiffly toward the camera in a tight-fitting kurta of luminous champagne-colored cotton and a pataka, or stole, of embroidered red silk organza. The prince sits bolt-upright on a divan, hands primly in his lap. “My name is Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil,” he tells the camera, “and I would be interested to come down to England.” Other than me, this is the prince’s media obligation of the day: to make an audition tape for a planned Channel Four reality show, The Traveling Prince, in which princes from around the world will travel to England and, hopefully, meet Prince Charles and Harry and Wills.
The on-tape interview begins.
“Who do you most admire?”
“I admire the courage of Elton John.”
“Who is your favorite American?”
“Oprah Winfrey. I really admire that woman, having the best talk show in the world.” (He was on it last fall, in a series featuring gay people from around the world.)
“What is your message to British people?”
“Because section 337 of our penal code still exists, there is a lot of stigma and discrimination in our country toward gays,” he says, referring to the Indian law, begun under 19th-century British rule, criminalizing gay sex. It’s seldom enforced but often used by police to blackmail closeted gay men. The country’s small cadre of out gay activists have long lobbied for its demise.
“Would you marry a man?”
“We can’t get married. We can only have some sort of understanding between two partners, which I look for.”
His family, the prince explains, despite having lost their formal power when Britain left India in 1947, still possesses enormous local esteem (not to mention a lot of real estate). “We are even treated as gods in some areas,” he says. Then he gets down to the news peg: “I became famous in India because I am the first member of a royal family to come out as a gay.” READ MORE
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