Stylist Phillip Bloch: "I Was Raped By Peppo Vanini"

'He pulled out his thing and started going in me. I remember it being painful and messy. I was so repulsed.

'I remember clenching and thinking I can't keep it out. At some point, I looked the other direction and blacked out.

Mm hmm.

'I also think in the gay community there can be a passive-aggressive, dismissiveness of sex. In the past few months, when I've talked to other gay guys about Peppo, a few have said, "Girl, please - you wanted that."

Girl Please!

'And no, I really didn't. What happened was inappropriate, so wrong. I was an 18-year-old boy.'

Whore

Yes, R3. Only a whore talks about being raped. Male or female.

And you're a prime example of humanity, right?

Who? and who?

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"after he arrived in Manhattan"... 'I came to the city from Long Island when I was 18,'

Both Bloch and the "reporter" really attempt to give the impression that Bloch fell off the turnip truck; Phillip Bloch is from Seaford which is 27 miles from Manhattan but . I'm sorry, but when your 'journey to NYC' is a few stops on the LIRR you can't make this claim of ignorance or naivety.

Talk about letting yourself go.

Well, Vanini seemed to have a type.

He was hot as hell. I would have wanted to enter him, too.

[quote]Both Bloch and the "reporter" really attempt to give the impression that Bloch fell off the turnip truck; Phillip Bloch is from Seaford which is 27 miles from Manhattan but . I'm sorry, but when your 'journey to NYC' is a few stops on the LIRR you can't make this claim of ignorance or naivety.

Ha! I was thinking the same thing. By 18 I was in "the city", many times by myself, a hundred times.

There still are naive or rather unsophisticated Long Island boys. I ride the LIRR most days and see them. Generally going to sporting events in the City.

Have you been to Seaford? It's IS the turnip truck

Peppo Vanini passed away in 2012.

I have no problem with Bloch waiting 40 years before mentioning it to anyone, however it's curious that Bloch waited until Vanini has been dead for six years to mention it (defamation and slander laws do not apply to the deceased)... Might Phillip Bloch might be trying to hop on the #METOO bandwagon?

Topo Gigio RAPED me!

Who raped what now?

"Disco daddy"? I'm sure that moniker wasn't the result of coke-fueled group romps w/the Kennedys.

So what does this imply about JFK Jr and RFK Jr?

Or were their names enough so he didn't need to fuck them?

I was uninformed and misinformed. Not to disrespect my parents but they didn't know much and my mother had a very innocent idea of what the world was. My parents never had a sex talk with me. They gave me a book and asked if I had questions. I said no.'

In the 1970s, the hottest clubs in New York were the mecca of disco, Studio 54, and its rival, Xenon, which also attracted a fashion crowd and was owned by promoter Howard Stein and restaurateur Peppo Vanini.

'FIT students were given cards to get into Xenon for free. All these grown-up European people were partying there,' Bloch said. 'It was very influential. To me, Europe was a symbol of success and making it.

'Peppo introduced himself and asked me out on a date. He was this rich European – he wore a nice suit, he was very suave. He must have been in his forties at the time, more than twice my age.

'I had never had sex with a guy. I'd fooled around with girls but I was a virgin.'

Vanini took Bloch to a French restaurant on the Upper East Side, he says.

'After dinner, we walked and talked,' he said. 'I looked at a jacket in a store window and Peppo said, "Do you like it? We can come back tomorrow and get it".

'I remember thinking, "How are we going to get it tomorrow?" It didn't register. I knew I was on a date but my level of understanding was that of an 18-year-old from Long Island in 1978.'

Vanini asked Bloch up to his apartment to see his art collection.

'I debated whether I should or I shouldn't go,' Bloch said. 'It was a beautiful apartment and he showed me art which I pretended to know about.

'I was very influenced by it all but sadly, many of these monsters, as Salma [Hayek] calls them, use that power – they know that about you.'

Vanini asked Bloch to stay over in his guest bedroom but before he got there, they stopped in the club owner's own bedroom to look at more art.

'He had a king-size bed, with lots of pillows and beautiful soft fabrics. Peppo said, "Why don't we sleep in here? The bed's big, don't worry".

'He knew the right things to say. I believed that he saw me as this sophisticated, creative artist. But the reality was he wanted to f*** me.

I undressed and was on the far side of the bed. He started to kiss me and I hated his smell, I think he drank champagne. To this day, it makes me recoil.

'I was in a multi-emotional situation. I remember hating his sloppy tongue kisses but I didn't know what to do.

'I told him no over and over, that I didn't want to do this and then he became more forceful and he was bigger than me. He kept insisting, he was like an octopus.

'He pulled out his thing and started going in me. I remember it being painful and messy. I was so repulsed.

'I remember clenching and thinking I can't keep it out. At some point, I looked the other direction and blacked out.

'When I awoke in the morning, I wanted to leave. There was a tray of tea and pain au chocolat and Peppo asked me if I wanted to eat but I couldn't. I left, moved on and tried not to have thoughts about it.'

Bloch suspects now that he was drugged that night.

'I wasn't drunk but I do question now whether I was roofied. Beverly Johnson is a friend of mine [the former supermodel who accused Bill Cosby of drugging her].

'We have talked about how, in that era, we didn't know that being roofied existed - the communication was not like it is now.

'At the time, I remember thinking - how did I sleep here? He might have put something in my drink, like a Valium.'

Bloch blamed himself for the attack and said that the thought of going to the police never crossed his mind.

'I believed that I went to Peppo's room and I shouldn't have gone. I thought, 'Is that what being gay is? Well that wasn't good.'

'I didn't even think to go to the police. I didn't know it was a crime. This was a time when I didn't even think a guy could be raped.

'At that time attitudes were very aggressive towards gay people. Stonewall had only happened a few years before that.

Bloch returned to Xenon because he wanted to hang out with the cool crowd that populated its dancefloor, including Brooke Shields and Mariel Hemingway.

Xenon was also a favorite hang-out of the Kennedy children, including John F Kennedy Jr and Robert Kennedy’s children, among them RFK Jr.

According to a 1989 New York Magazine profile of JFK Jr, owners Stein and Vanini were considered ‘disco daddies’ by the young members of the Kennedy clan.

Vanini treated them like kings when they came to his Times Square club, considering them ‘the closest thing to royals in America’.

Bloch said: 'I needed a job so Peppo gave me one at the club. He kept coming on to me but he was doing this with all these other guys - I was one of a long list. Some guys that I've met along the way had similar experiences with him.'

Bloch says the rape shaped the direction of his life over the following decade.

He developed a tough exterior and focused on being the 'cool party boy' with an insatiable appetite for alcohol and drugs.

'After that experience with Peppo, a switch got flipped,' Bloch said.

He would head to the East Village to buy drugs with his close friend Gia Carangi, a model in the early Eighties who passed away in 1986 from AIDS complications.

'Gia had famous Vogue and Cosmo covers out at the same time,' the stylist recalled. 'We were leaving in a car service and there were gunshots.

'I looked through a crack in the window as we sped past a bodega and the magazines were there. I thought this was so cool.

'This life was so crazy and I thought it was how it was supposed to be. I was hanging out with Janice Dickinson, having lunch with Bianca Jagger.'

Bloch then took a job as a busboy at Studio 54. He worked alongside fellow teenager, and now world-renowned photographer, David LaChapelle.

The Broadway nightclub attracted the great and good of Hollywood and rock and roll royalty from Mick Jagger and David Bowie to Elizabeth Taylor and Andy Warhol.

'Steve Rubell [Studio 54's owner] was my boss. I got up in the afternoon, got a slice of pizza and went to the club,' Bloch said.

'In the early 80s, a rock and roll vibe became popular – the models Gia and Leslie Winer and David and I had that look.

'My job was to put on skimpy shorts - never skimpy enough for Steve - but he understood that there was an attraction to certain people. He hired you based on your looks and your sexuality.

'I would get there at 10pm, take off my clothes and basically get sexually molested by famous people and plied with liquor, drugs and wild times until 6am.

'Every celebrity in the world came in there, everyone that I had ever seen from my little TV on Long Island. Truman Capote would always put his hands on the bar and rub up against you.

'I've seen everything in that Studio 54 basement – I can't remember most of it but it was things that 19-year-olds should not see. I wasn't ready for it. The things I've seen in Studio 54 – 99 per cent of the population have never seen.'

Bloch was discovered during his days at Studio 54 and started modelling, eventually ending up in Paris in the shows of a young John Galliano and John Paul Gaultier. But the fashion world came with its own array of pitfalls.

Bloch said: 'I was at an agency in Paris when I was booked for a fitting by a man called Cyril at Yves Saint Laurent. It was YSL – it was a big deal.

'Cyril was old and had this tobacco-stained, handlebar moustache. I got there at lunchtime and Cyril had me put on underwear. Then he fidgeted with my butt and d***. He fiddled and touched in a way that was unnecessary.

'I wasn't the "body boy" – so who was hiring me to put on underwear? I was the model in leather jacket and jeans with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth.

'But I had become tougher. I saw a packet of cigarettes on his desk, took one and sat down on the couch in the underwear. My modus operandi was let's hang out – so I don't have to f*** with you.

After the supposed fitting, Bloch returned to his agency and shared what happened.

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R23 this is the case study for the visual atrocities that the House of Versace did to gay men in the 90s!

I had no idea that he had that background or that he is as old as he is.

What the hell is going on with Donatella's bottom lip?! HA HA HA!!!

Way too funny. Peppo slept with almost every hot guy at F.I.T.

We got into Xenon for free with our student I.D.s. He was married to Victoria Tenant at the time.

I remember Phil, but Peppo was hot for my friend Doug who was much better looking. That Phil wasn't impressive in person.

Peppo looked like an ugly Andy Travis from WKRP. He was also part of some sort of Swiss candy fortune.

I didn't know he was dead. He liked my friend Esme.

If the incident turned him off anal, that could be why he's around today.

He should be grateful.

Tell more stories of NYC back then, R27!

You shared stuff on the Halston thread too, right?

Did any of you know Bob Feiden who worked with Clive Davis at Arista? He was around New York in the 70's and 80's.

The Kennedy kids have nothing to do with this story.

I get Peppo Vanini and Pepe Le Pew mixed up.

[quote] I've seen everything in that Studio 54 basement – I can't remember most of it but it was things that 19-year-olds should not see.

Alright, Charlene.

[quote] Both Bloch and the "reporter" really attempt to give the impression that Bloch fell off the turnip truck; Phillip Bloch is from Seaford which is 27 miles from Manhattan but . I'm sorry, but when your 'journey to NYC' is a few stops on the LIRR you can't make this claim of ignorance or naivety.

That's a WORLD away from Manhattan. At that time, the boroughs outside of New York City were more like Pittsburgh than Manhattan.

Raped by a Pepperoni!

Not really R34. I'm from farther out on the Island and I, and the rest of us gays out here in "Pittsburgh," were the bridge and tunnel people who got into all the clubs, like this queen. He's being a disingenuous faux victim. It's not a "date" when you get naked in the bedroom and sleep in the same bed. His story is weird.

R36, I lived in Queens in the early 80s and it was much more provincial -- and Manhattan much more remote -- than it is today. Seaford is like small-town nowhere comparatively. Give the guy a break.

I was with a guy from Seaford once. Smallest dick I didn't need tweezers for.

No, he was NOT hotter than John-John.

I'm all for giving Phillip Bloch a break. I'm just saying his "naive" act is a little put on. Especially when you read the article.

Please do not reply to this thread. OP is a super-troll whose sole intention is to cause fights and division among DLers and to damage Datalounge in general.

OP has no interest whatsoever in any of the following topics: male culture, sexual abuse, false accusations, rape, due process, pop culture, or other topics. For background, please see this thread started by another concerned DLer.

R41, I don't know who you are and obviously you don't know me. I never saw that thread nor did I comment on it. As far as damaging Datalounge in general, best laugh ever!!!

[quote]"I Was Raped By Peppo Vanini"

B-side to "Downtown" by Miss Petula Clark

[quote]when I've talked to other gay guys about Peppo, a few have said,[bold] "Girl, please [/bold]- you wanted that."

I can barely breathe!

They told me on DL, when I enquired, that American gays NEVER actually SAY "gurl, please" in real life.

They lied to me!!!...and then probably laughed amongst themselves.

[quote]'I came to the city from Long Island when I was 18,' Bloch, 57, said. 'I lived in a time of innocence - I was gay and I didn't even know what gay was.

the late 70s an innocent time?

Don't make me laugh.

[quote]I didn't even know what gay was.

Then he was retarded.

This is the most obvious case of #lookatmetoo I've seen so far. At the level of Aziz Ansari's blow job bitch.

If it only appears in the Daily Mail is it Fake News? He claims to dress/style Melania Trump! (Doubt it) I wonder why he came out with this story now?