TORONTO — Big Brother 16 competitor Zach Rance said this week he hopes his close friendship with openly gay housemate Frankie Grande sends a message to other straight men.
“You can be straight and have a gay best friend. It doesn’t matter,” Rance said in an interview with Out magazine.
“I feel like I was kind of a role model on the show for some people who might look at me and say, ‘wow, Zach’s a really cool guy and he’s best friends with a gay guy, so why can’t I be best friends with a gay guy?'”
Rance, 23, and Grande, 31, were so tight during the most recent season of Big Brother that fans dubbed the pair “Zankie.”
Rance said he was aware that forming such a public bond with a gay man would spark speculation about his sexuality.
“I knew that I was going to get, I don’t want to say ‘heat’ because that’s not the right word, but I knew it was going to turn into something. Did I care? No,” he said.
Rance said more people need to stop focusing on sexuality.
“I’m obviously straight, I’ve made that clear millions of times, and the fact that I was cuddling with a gay guy, giving him a massage… you know, let’s be real, guys give other guys massages. It’s not a big deal,” Rance told Out.
He said he wasn’t worried about Grande crossing a line.
“I was never afraid that he would try to kiss me. If he tried to kiss me, I would have said, ‘no, it’s not like that,’ and I would have continued to be friends with him,” said Rance.
He said the two hope to team up again in front of cameras — perhaps on their own reality series. They also plan to travel together to Africa to do charity work.
“I don’t see Frankie’s sexual orientation at all—it doesn’t define him. He’s a great person. He’s a great human being,” Rance explained. “He’s extremely smart, he’s extremely funny, and to me that’s all that matters. He’s a very kind person.
“Sexual orientation doesn’t matter, and the whole world needs to move on. That’s just what we need to do.”
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