Michael Musto takes on Calvin Klein about his boy toy

Michael Musto wants Calvin Klein to go back into the closet.

In a column published last Friday, Musto criticized the 69-year-old Klein about his relationship with the "almost-21-year-old ex-porn star, Nick Gruber," writing "you're fawning over him as if this were real love and not a massive late-life crisis being acted out for the horrified masses."

He began his column with a bit of friendly advice and criticism:

"Calvin, darling, you're embarrassing yourself. What's worse, you're embarrassing the whole community."

Then Musto criticized Klein's less-than-out-and-proud gay past:

"You were never really that much of a gay hero in the first place. Remember when you suddenly had a wife because, as AIDS made it uncool to be gay, you took the wussy way out and closeted yourself so you could sell more T shirts and perfume? That was a hideous approach and I screamed my lungs out about it--but it was better than now!"

Things still rosy?

But are things still rosy with Klein and Gruber?

Last October Klein told an audience at the 92nd Street Y: "'I fell in love with a wonderful young man, and we recently went paragliding off Aspen Mountain.'"

But conflicting reports in the past weeks make it seem that there's trouble in CK's world.

The New York Daily News reported on January 12 that Klein "raised eyebrows socializing at the Dream Downtown hotel's Ph-D nightclub without 21-year-old boyfriend Nick Gruber on Sunday morning; a source informed tells us the two are not together at the moment.

The report continued: "Klein and Gruber, who began dating in the spring of 2010, are currently 'on a break,' says the source, who is close to both men. 'They could get back together, but who knows?' says the insider. Klein and Gruber's relationship has been described as 'on-and-off' by those close to them, although yesterday nightlife promoter and radio personality Daniel Nardicio, who claims to be working with Gruber, told the Village Voice that Nick 'really loves Calvin and wants to spend the rest of his life with him.'"

The following day, though, a source close to Gruber met the former porn star Friday afternoon. He claimed the two never split.

"Nick says they ignore the press and that all is fine," our insider reveals. "They were never apart... [Nick's] a good kid and I don't think he's hiding anything." (Not even the fact that he allegedly did porn?) Apparently the two say they're very much in love and want to be together for life."

The Daily News stood by its original report.

Who is Nick (aka "Zeke")?

But who is Gruber? Gawker investigated in 2010 and wrote that he's "from Crystal River, Florida, graduated high school last year, and is currently enrolled at Santa Rosa Junior College north of San Francisco. He's friends with the general assortment of young ladies and hot gay guys one would expect of a handsome young dude. But he's also friends with a gay pornographer named Blue Blake."

But does Gruber have a porn past? Gawker also investigated that angle.

"We made the connection between Nick Gruber, the 20-year-old model who's currently dating the fashion mogul, and 'Nick London,' an underwear model with a portfolio full of racy photos on ModelMayhem.com, a sort of MySpace for prospective models. Just hours after we published our post, Nick's Model Mayhem profile was removed from the site. How curious! Fortunately, one of our porn-addled readers pointed us to 'Aaron Skyline,' a model who filmed scenes for several gay porn websites last year. 'Meet Aaron Skyline, a 19 year old semi pro mixed martial arts fighter. Yeah, he'll kick your ass, but he'll also get naked and show you his,' read the introduction to a scene posted on the site NextDoorMale.com last summer."

Gawker continued:

"Nick's been pretty busy since making his porn debut as 'Aaron Skyline' for Next Door Male during the summer of 2009.

"Since then, he's appeared in three scenes for other sites owned by Next Door, got a blowjob from gay superstar Mason Wyler as part of a shoot for MasonWyler.com, and had sex with women in two scenes for Next Door Hookups. His last appearance was in January 2010 when he appeared in solo scene on the gay porn site SeanCody.com under the name 'Zeke.' (If we had to guess where Calvin found him, we'd go with Sean Cody with it's miles and miles of bronzed, buff gods.)"