Photo credit: Marcus Bennett
“Look, if your tire breaks down, don’t call me. I can’t be your man,” TV personality & Style guru Paul Wharton told Hollywood on the Potomac on the terrace of Kingbird Restaurant at The Watergate Hotel in between dinner and the lemon souffle. Wharton is more than just a personality, he’s a brand. From now on, he should just go by “Wharton” like Usher, Iman, Ludacris or Wilhelmina – as in the Wilhelmina Agency where he worked as a model, actor and stylist at the onset of his career in NYC. We’ll explain the tire thing in a minute. First, we’ll take a spin through his life.
“Wharton”
Life began in Cleveland, Ohio …… then on to Columbia, Maryland followed by Laurel, Md. He remembers his Laurel home fondly. His dad is a builder so they lived in “a really nice house…. a kind of Tudor thing on a hill …. really nice. Our dining room was an elevated kind of wood floor and then you step down and go to the living room, and that was my stage.” He was four when he invented his stage. “The house was full of music (Patti LaBelle) and my mom was a great cook so she loved having friends over; everyone was welcome. Whenever people came to our house, there was music that was always playing. The kitchen smelled wonderful. She was always drinking champagne or wine and it just felt like a great time. The holidays were amazing. It wasn’t until I went to some of my friends’ homes that I realized that not everybody lives like this. I would go into their homes and their moms would be walking around; it would be quiet, and I would hear the news on. There would be nothing cooking in the kitchen, and they all did self serve. They would go into the cabinets and get cereal or Twix or something. We never had any of that stuff. When it was time to eat, my mom made a fabulous meal.”
Growing up in such a spirited and congenial atmosphere, it’s easy to understand why “Wharton” carries on the entertaining tradition. His recent poolside party at the The Mansion – considered the hottest real estate in town – is just one example of his unique lifestyle which is, shall we say, unlike most others in Washington. The invitation read: “Paul Wharton would love for you to join him and The Mandy and David Team of Compass for a fun, poolside cocktail party at their hot, new listing – 2220 Q Street NW. This one of a kind home is being offered at $4.5 million and comes complete with your very own rooftop swimming pool and an alley that the new owners get to name themselves! Come hang with Paul and the PWM2 models as they showcase the latest D’Milikah swimwear, enjoy open bar signature cocktails by Service Bar DC, hors d’ouvres expertly prepared by Hungry* app Chef Glynda Brown, desserts by Basket Treata by Alexis Street, flowers by The Watergate Florist, groove to hot music by DJ Jerome Baker and get into the jaw dropping brand new Mercedes Benz S 63 AMG Coupe that will be on display in the very spacious 2 car garage courtesy of our friends at Euro MotorCars Bethesda.”
“As early as I can remember,” Wharton told us, “I felt in a very safe place trying to show my creativity in front of my mother. My father at that time not so much. Fathers want you to be throwing the football around. That’s why he did things like he bought me a three wheeler, the big ATC three wheeler, when I was a kid. Things like that. However, it’s interesting that we have these innate fears about our fathers that later turn out never to fully realize, because as an adult, my father and I are great together.” So now we get to the tire.
“Wharton” is part of the LGBTQ community and like many sons he thought a lot about family dynamics when opening up about being a gay man. “I think a lot of it was fear of being rejected, not being accepted, not being understood. I think that fear of the unknown is the reason why so many young gay people commit suicide. However, I never tried to be something that I am not. I never tried to claim this was my girlfriend, or I was going to get married, or anything like that, although I dated women in the past, but I never dated them publicly in a way to try to make either them feel like I was straight, or the world feel like I was straight. It just kind of happened. I would say, “Look, your tire breaks down, don’t call me. I can’t be your man. Call AAA.”
Erika Gutierrez with “Wharton” and Jeanhee Kim
By the time he was 19 he was living the high life in New York City. “While I was in New York I was a model coach with a show debuting as the number one rated original series that MTV had ever had in terms of their viewership and popularity. It won an Emmy and that instantly made me very recognizable in New York. That was in the early days of reality TV in 2003. The only thing that was out then was Survivor. I don’t think Top Model had even come out yet. They were shooting their first season when Made had already come out. From Made I got a job on The Ricky Lake Show doing makeovers and helping people get dates. That helped elevate my career to the next level. Then from there, I was kind of famous but not rich, so I had to figure that out. For me, being known in New York but not rich meant having the time of my life, running around in the clubs. Being the king of the night was great, but you’ve got to make your cash during the day. That ran its course. I didn’t really have much direction during the day. I had a smart father, smart mother, and family support down here in Washington. When I finished Ricky Lake and I had this opportunity to do a show on VH1 called The Agency, I said, ‘Let me go move back down to DC, where I can set up my business and do workshops and kind of get my life together.’ I kept working on television. I did TV Land, She’s Got the Look, and then I did a new network called TV One at the time, a show called Makeover Manner which we actually shot in New Jersey in the house that Whoopi Goldberg ended up buying.” Goldberg and “Wharton” subsequently became friends, spending Christmas together. Other NY friends included Tamron Hall and Sherri Shepherd.
Michael Greene of The Watergate Florist
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Getting to Washington: “I needed a day job so I decided that doing all these shows and having some visibility would be a good opportunity for me to come back down to DC. I ended up with CBS Warner, Channel 50, WDCW TV. I started doing the local casting here for Top Model, and I did it for 16 cycles of that show. When people would see me on the CW, I’d be talking about, ‘If you think you have what it takes to be America’s Next Top Model, come out to Pentagon City and show me’ and I would do the auditions. We made it a very public thing. CW has great viewership here. Now that I’m on Fox 5, I love being over there on Good Day because they give me the opportunity to create segments where we do infuse celebrities and lifestyle and fun and dating, and then real life topics too. The first week I was on, I interviewed my friend Omarosa.” Which takes us to politics. We didn’t ask “Wharton” to share his political views but he like so many others here in DC, knows Trump from his time in NYC. He knows that his friend Omarosa will vote for him because she is loyal. She was a contestant on the first season of Donald Trump’s original American version of The Apprentice. “Wharton” is a big fan of Omarosa because she has gone through a lot and contrary to her public persona is extremely sweet, kind and then there’s loyal.
Besides his business activities, he has worked with the DC Child and Family service Youth division for over 8 years on an annual fashion show and has worked extensively with The Capital Area Food Bank. This fall he will co-host The Annual Duke Ellington School Gala and The Fair Chance Ball.
On being unconventional and successful in a conservative town? “I think it was the right time and the right place. I don’t know. I always felt like I was an entertainer. I thought the dining room was my stage. On his detractors he says: “People can call me a lot of things, but I’m going to tell you something. I live in DC, I’m on Fox 5 in the morning, I have hair down my back and I’m a black gay man.” There’s that!
