Gay Congressional Candidate Confirms Past Fetish Gear Modeling
Chris Gallant’s attorney says the candidate will not allow the years-old photos to be weaponized for political purposes.
Photos have surfaced showing Chris Gallant, an openly gay congressional candidate and the Democratic nominee for New York’s 1st Congressional District, modeling leather and fetish gear.
Gallant, 37, who is challenging incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota, confirmed that he modeled for Mr. S Leather more than 15 years ago. The San Francisco-based retailer sells harnesses, ball gags, collars, jockstraps, and other products.
The New York Post was the first to report on the photos, which showed Gallant modeling various leather items. However, the article published only two photos from the Mr. S Leather shoot, both showing Gallant wearing a black leather posture collar with a chain and padlock. The images no longer appear on the Mr. S Leather website but remain accessible through internet archives, which indicate they were online between 2011 and 2020.
The article included two other photos — neither of which appears to be connected to Gallant’s modeling for Mr. S Leather. One, which the Post says was taken and posted in 2007, shows Gallant in a leather harness with a blue arrow painted in his hair to mimic the sacred tattoo worn by the cartoon character Aang in the children’s show Avatar: The Last Airbender. The other shows Gallant wearing only white aussieBum boxer briefs at the Invasion of the Pines, an LGBTQ event held on Fire Island, in 2007.
The framing of The New York Post article appears intended to cast Gallant as a sexual deviant or otherwise unfit for office, burying key details of his biography until the 15th paragraph.
Gallant is a Black Hawk pilot, an Army veteran, a National Guardsman, a former air traffic controller and union leader for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, and a volunteer firefighter.
The Post notes that Gallant has served in the Army National Guard since 2006 and was likely a Guardsman when he “posed for the XXX-rated images.” However, the publication did not report whether Gallant was on active duty when the photos were taken or whether military officials have opened an investigation.
The Post also claims to have found — but did not publish — other photos of Gallant from the 2007 Invasion of the Pines event that allegedly “depicted him in hardcore pornographic poses, including fully naked and having sex with another man.” It further alleges that Gallant “posed with muzzles and blindfolds during the shagging” and claims to have found “a picture of him smiling in a cage.”
The right-wing newspaper claims the person shown in the images can be identified as Gallant based on a “blemish on his left temple and his distinctive earlobe shape.” It also says facial recognition software matched the images to Gallant.
“The photographs are authentic and were taken during a private, consensual photo session involving Chris and his then-partner, with whom he was in a committed four-year relationship,” Gallant’s attorney, Sara Azari, said of the Mr. S Leather images in a statement to the Post.
Azari said Gallant was friends with the owner of Mr. S Leather and that the photo shoot was “intended to be fun and personal,” with the understanding that the company “could use select images in connection with certain products.” She said Gallant later requested that the photos be removed.
“As Chris began considering a future in public service, he asked that the photographs no longer be used and that they be removed from the company’s website,” Azari said. “Mr. S honored his request.”
Although other images of Gallant wearing Mr. S Leather gear have appeared on gay porn sites unaffiliated with the retailer, Azari said Gallant “never intended to authorize unrestricted publication” by third parties.
Azari said that Gallant “will not allow photographs from a past relationship or employment to be distorted and weaponized for political purposes or used to distract voters from the issues that matter.”
She added, “These photographs have no bearing on Chris’s record, qualifications, judgment, or ability to serve. He remains fully committed to his campaign and to earning the trust of the people he seeks to represent.”
The Cook Political Report, an independent, nonpartisan website that analyzes campaigns and elections, currently rates the race between Gallant and LaLota as “Solid Republican,” meaning it is not considered competitive. LaLota first won the seat in 2022, succeeding Lee Zeldin, now the EPA administrator, who vacated it to run unsuccessfully for governor that year.
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