Fashion week w/Eva Longoria, Verdi and stylist Rachel Zoe
Robert Verdi has a reputation not only for his sharp eye for design and fashion but also because he always says everything and anything that’s on his mind, which is also why his fans love him. While Verdi is the first to admit that it was a long time coming, Logo finally wised up and gave the self-described ‘most hated homo in Hollywood’ his own show. As The Robert Verdi Show Starring Robert Verdi launched last week on Logo, Verdi talked to me early one morning about how he is like a hooker, why he won’t be adopting any ‘spicy brown babies’ anytime soon and why it was important to him to talk to his nieces on camera about being gay.
Jim Halterman: I got up early today and watched the first two episodes of your show…
Robert Verdi: …the most fabulous show on TV?
JH: …and it was a great way to wake up because I’m in a very good mood from watching you and your show.
RV: That’s the first time someone has said that after seeing me in the morning.
Verdi with Kathy Griffin at the GLAAD Media Awards
JH: Well, I’m saying it, Mister! Tell me about your show and how you paired up with Logo.
RV: My television history is very checkered. I’m sort of like a hooker. I’ll do business with anyone who wants to do business with me. I had pitched the idea a couple years prior and didn’t get anywhere with the development people at the time. But I thought that the channel was the right place for me. I’d been trying to sell not only to Logo but a number of shows to anybody in television and I had all these what I thought of as great reality concepts and great programming concepts but nobody gave a shit because I’m not Ryan Seacrest, which is basic message about my life. I’m not good enough, I’m not famous enough, I’m not good looking enough, I’m not rich enough, I’m not thin enough, I’m just not enough. That’s the name of my book, which I just titled. Lo and behold we got different people at Logo who totally got it, who were huge fans. It took a solid six months before we had a green light but we got the green light and we jumped to do it.
Robert Verdi testing the scents with a gleam in his eye
JH: From what I’ve seen, the show is primarily focused on the workplace. Do we get to see your home later?
RV: I don’t let anybody into my house unless I’m having sex with them. I like to keep my space really private except for people I am paying for personal relationships. The problem with my home is that for television, because I have a lot of artwork and there are a lot of clearance issues, I’m not willing to take down the artwork that it took a long time to get shipped and put up on my walls.
JH: In the show, you seem to blame any bad ideas on your team. A perk of having a show with your name in the title?
RV: I do blame them for a lot of my failures and it’s largely why the joke/not really a joke is a peek into my very, very fake real life and my very, very real fake life. They’re great but they’re not people who are in jobs they are confident and capable of executing. [laughs]
JH: Were they on board with being on camera?
RV: I like to call them the season one-team. We call them the season-oners. They were okay with it. Some more okay like Patrick, who has a gun, a knife and an automobile and is always trying to kill me off, and is particularly okay with it because, as I said to Patrick the day I hired him, I didn’t really get the sense he wanted to work for me but I get the sense that he wants to be me, to which he responded, after a pregnant pause, ‘I can’t disagree with you.’
JH: In the first episode, someone in your staff says that you don’t really care for kids and they don’t care for you but the tea party you had with your nieces was a lot of fun to watch. You even outted yourself to them!
RV: I’m not going to actually purchase any spicy brown babies this season even though they are in style. Everybody who is anybody has purchased a spicy baby from somewhere but I am going to spend my money on shoes instead. I adore children and I’m very lucky to have a sister who’s fertile so if you put a bag of grass seed next to her you can have a lawn in no time. She has two little girls and I always had an issue with my sister not addressing [their uncle being gay]…because she felt that there was no need to do anything and they don’t understand sex anyway and she has all these theories about why children don’t need to actually be told about homosexuality or sexuality of any type and my argument was that growing up gay what you never see is an adult version of yourself or a representation of who you are and what you’re thinking or feeling. We grow up reading Romeo and Juliet and as children we’re watching Charlie Brown and Lucy flirt and we see Mr. and Mrs. Bunker on TV and Mr. and Mrs. Huxtable and Mr. and Mrs. everywhere. Everything is heterosexual about our lives and we are feeling the need to have the same sort of experience that is moderately different. Is there something missing out there in terms of the initial information and emotional information? I said to her that once you make it a dirty secret it becomes something they’re supposed to be embarrassed about and it’s supposed to be a secret. She and I had several conversations about it and I said ‘I want to do it on my show so people can see that children are not as stupid as they think.’
JH: The kids already knew what gay was!
RV: They knew! That’s the part that I thought was really great was that they actually …like Christina saying you’re dating someone of the same gender. She gets it!
JH: I loved that she used the word ‘gender!’
RV: Yes!
JH: During your staff meetings, you seem to use the time for multi-tasking such as having acupuncture.
RV: I do everything during my staff meeting! I don’t like to waste time and so any time I am doing one thing like as you and I are speaking I am going through my bag and organizing my things. My mother used to call me lazy when I wasn’t lazy. So if I was ever idle, my Mom would say to me ‘Don’t you feel lazy?’ I’d say ‘No!’ and she’d say ‘Why don’t you clean a drawer while you’re doing that?’ So I’d be watching TV and she would literally mean take the drawer out of the chest and put it on the floor and clean it. I do shit like that all the time because my Mom was intimidating and scary. [perfectly timed comedic beat] She is not on the show.
JH: You mention wanting an airline in the opening titles of the show. If you had your own airline, what would the flight crew wear?
RV: That’s a really good question and I usually start there. I mean, I know that’s not where we’re supposed to start but…I was thinking more about the engineering of the aircraft would be of the utmost importance but I like where you’re going. I think that they’d be in evening wear. I like to fly late in the day because I feel like if you fly during the day you’re wasting time. I would like to think of it as a flying party and then I would feel like I could network and not waste time. I would have the social escape, I’d be able to get a few business cards and people wouldn’t annoy me with their boring uniforms. It’s called Air Easy Wear or maybe I’ll call it Night Class.
JH: That’s sexy!
RV: I had an a-ha moment a couple of days ago when I realized after a bad date that I’m not the hot guy in the room. I kind of sometimes think in my head that I’m the hot guy in the room but what I realized is that’s not what other people are thinking. They’re thinking I’m the funny guy in the room and I thought to myself ‘Shit! I’d better capitalize on this before I die because yesterday I was 21 and today I’m 41 and that unfortunately means tomorrow I’m 61 so everybody says ‘what’s next for you?’ and I say ‘selling out!’
JH: What do you hope people take from your show?
RV: What I hope is that a car company, a finance company, an airline and a teeth-whitening product will give me some sort of contract. I like to call it a tele-resume.
The Robert Verdi Show Starring Robert Verdi airs Wednesday nights at 10/9c on Logo and can also be seen on www.LogoOnline.com.
Jim Halterman spends his days interviewing the top tier of talent and creative forces in the television world and then, because he's that kind of guy, he brings it all to YOU! And, because we all like free stuff, check back often for giveaways!! 
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
RV is just sooooo hilarious! Good job Jim H! Funny questions followed by just funny answers!
Isn’t he a riot?? I have interviewed him twice on the phone so I’m hoping for a face-to-face next time. His LOGO show is hilarious!! Thanks for the comment, Rommel!
JIM