CBS confirmed Monday that Brian Heidik, one of the hunky new contestants on the latest edition of Survivor, has more than a few soft-porn credits on his acting résumé. Seems that when the network introduced the Survivor: Thailand cast last week, it didn't exactly mention oeuvres like The Virgin of Sherwood Forest and The Pleasure Zone in the bio of the 34-year-old stockbroker/motorcycle salesman/writer/wannabe actor.
Apparently, along with cameos in shows like Days of Our Lives, Doogie Howser, M.D. and Baywatch Nights, Heidik has also simulated sex in such Cinemax and Playboy TV classics as Passion Cove: Where Have You Been All My Life?, Passion's Obsession and more, um, titillating fare.
Heidik's extracurricular activity was first reported by the Smoking Gun Website.
CBS, for its part, isn't particularly bothered by Heidik's steamy past. In an official statement, the eyeball network says producers were "fully aware of his past film credits."
"The survivors ultimately have the option to decide what elements of their background they do and don't want written in their bios," says network rep Colleen Sullivan. "Brian Heidik is certainly not the first actor to omit certain credits from his biography. While this is a part of his past, he is now a successful used-car salesman raising a family in the suburbs.
"We feel he definitely brings something to the show."
And how. While Heidik never exactly went full monty (though his costars did), he has, according to the Smoking Gun, engaged in "groping, licking and apparently simulated sex (in all forms and filmed from multiple angles)."
Heidik's official G-rated show bio does, indeed, omit the soft porn. Instead, the married, Burtonsville, Maryland, based father of one is billed as a proud papa, a top used-car salesman and a member of the National Association of Homeowners and the Chamber of Commerce.
Perhaps to balance Heidik's porn past, show producers also included John Raymond, a 40-year-old pastor from Louisiana, among the latest batch of Survivor castaways. As far as we know, he's porn-free.
Of course, by now, such reality revelations aren't that shocking.
Nary a season of CBS' other reality show, Big Brother, has gone by without some sort of contestant controversy. Houseguest Chiara Berti on the current Big Brother 3 was rung up on drunken-driving charges just weeks before the show started. Justin Sebik was booted off Big Brother 2 for holding a knife to the throat of another guest--after it was revealed that he had a rap sheet for assault and robbery, the woman on the receiving end of the knife play filed a lawsuit against CBS and show producers. It also came to light that Sebik's housemate Michael Malin had served a probationary sentence for trespassing and carrying a fake ID, and fellow contestant Shannon Dragoo had hit and killed an elderly man and pleaded guilty to a careless-driving charge.
Over at Fox, the network has had plenty of its own problems in the lying contestant department, as well. Most recently, the network had to boot American Idol contestant Delano Cagnolatti for fudging his age to get onto the show. And let's not forget Taheed Watson and Ytossie Patterson who got kicked off Temptation Island for not revealing they had a child together before entering the singles lustathon.
As for Suvivor: Thailand, the fifth edition of the Emmy-winning reality game show kicks off September 19 with a cast that includes, aside from the soft-porn star and the pastor, a first grade teacher, a software-development manager, a restaurant owner, a pharmaceutical sales representative and a bartender.
The contestants will vie for the show's million-dollar prize in a series of challenges in the tropical jungles of Koh Tarutao in Thailand's exotic Tarutao Islands National Park, a chain of 51 pristine islands dotting the Indian Ocean some 600 miles south of Bangkok.