The mystery man in Jeffree Star's steamy Instagram was identified as a basketball player, and Star insists he's not paying him
- Jeffree Star recently posted a steamy picture to Instagram with his first new man since breaking up with his long-term boyfriend Nathan Schwandt at the beginning of 2020.
- Star didn't post the man's face, but his visible arm tattoos were enough for the Instagram gossip page The Shade Room to identify him as the basketball player André Marhold.
- Critics were afraid the account was outing a man who may have been closeted, but once his identity was revealed Star began posting pictures of his face, too.
- Star also commented on speculation that he was paying Marhold to pretend to be his boyfriend, writing: "I know it's devastating news for some people, but I don't give money to anyone I'm dating."
Jeffree Star may have a new boyfriend. The beauty YouTuber and cosmetics CEO first posted a steamy anonymous photo of himself sitting on the lap of a new man over the weekend, captioning it: "Thankful for all the blessings God has brought into my life this year."
The man may have been faceless in the picture, but his arm tattoos were visible, and that's apparently all it took for sleuths to figure out it was the basketball player André Marhold, who is playing for a team in Germany and has matching ink.
The popular Instagram gossip page The Shade Room first identified the man, and critics angrily suggested that the outlet might have outed Marhold's sexuality.
But Star seemed to appreciate the confirmation, because he began posting pictures of Marhold's face on his Instagram story hours later.
"Jeffree Star" trended on Twitter throughout the day as people reacted to Star cozying up with the basketball player. Plenty of people commented with speculation that Star was paying Marhold to pretend to be his boyfriend, which the YouTuber snarkily responded to.
"I know it's devastating news for some people, but I don't give money to anyone I'm dating or anyone who is f---ing me," Star wrote on Twitter. "Work on your own insecurities sis — I'm not the problem."
He followed that up with a tweet that said, "Worry about how to pay your own bills, not who's in my mouth."
Others commented on the fact that Star had a lengthy history of racist incidents, such as aggressively directing racial slurs at random passersby for online content — he addressed the old, racist clips in a 2017 video — and just recently Star disappeared from the internet after being accused of manipulating the 2019 feud between James Charles and Tati Westbrook, only to resurface posing with a Black man.
In fact, a self-identified ex-girlfriend of Marhold commented on the pictures. There's no confirmation that this is actually Marhold's ex-girlfriend, but the post went viral on Twitter.
The Twitter user also posted about Star's racist past, writing, "He doesn't even like black people," and suggested that Marhold was being paid by Star, writing, "I'm not embarrassed just crazy what people do for money."
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