from – http://tv.blogs.pressdemocrat.com – I watched the series premiere of Bravo’s “Chef Academy” on Monday night, and as expected, it was pretty bland, especially when compared to “Top Chef” or “The Next Food Network Star” or even Fox’s awful “Hell’s Kitchen.” However . . . . “Chef Academy” has one thing that none of those other shows have. Celebrity chef host? Nothing new there. Wacky cheftestants? Par for the course. But a porn star? Um . . . . yeah, that’s one way to distinguish your show.

Thanks to the Interwebs (and a teaser scene from the show’s “coming up” clip), it appears that one of the “Chef Academy” contestants has had a prolific porn career under a pseudonym. Wannabe-chef Emmanuel DelCour, ye of the laissez-faire attitude, look in the mirror and meet Jean Val Jean (oh, that’s original), winner of the 2007 Adult Video Network Male Foreign Performer of the Year.

His official bio on Bravo’s site is mum on the subject, saying only that native of the South of France has acted in commercials, TV series (he’s been on “CSI” and swapped spit with Khloe on “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”) and has been a personal trainer.

His hobbies are “swimming uncaged with great white sharks, drawing and graphic design.” Borrr-ing. Nary a mention of — bwa-chicka-waa-waa (cue porn soundtrack) — “pizza deliveries” or “pool cleaning” or “cable repairman.” Though the bio does note that he’s full of “eclectic talents.” (Um, yeah, I guess you could say that.)

There are a ton of links to Emmanuel’s other career, and most aren’t especially appropriate to a general audience. But his IMDB page notes his “successful cross-over from modeling in straight adult entertainment” and Jean Val Jean’s Wikipedia page notes his particular porn talent.

And I’m not going to link to it due to its extremely graphic written content, but if you Google “Jean Val Jean Vibereview” you can read an interview where he goes into extreme detail about what he likes. It gets a little skeezy.

Really, would you want a creepy French porn star making your food? Who knows where those hands have been.

Cheap casting stunt or another example of a reality show not doing due diligence when screening contestants? Well, at least he’s not a stalker or a murderer, so Bravo still has one step up on VH1. But bottom line, it’s still not interesting enough to get me to watch again.