Andrew Shaw meets legendary porn director Chi Chi LaRue, and discovers he’s a skinny guy from Hibbing, Minnesota.

[http://mcv.e-p.net.au]- I meet Larry Paciotti and his friend Rob in the lobby of the hotel and the first thing I do is look behind them for Chi Chi LaRue. A couple of seconds later I take a closer look at Larry’s face and realise this really is the world’s most famous gay porn director.

He’s tall, extremely skinny, dressed in black, eyebrows plucked to almost nothing, with sandy blonde hair. His skin is radiant, his hands pale and boney – but that face is pure Chi Chi.

So what the hell happened to the body? Well, Paciotti had gastric bypass surgery seven months ago and lost 103 pounds – about 48.5kg. But he had his misgivings:

“One great thing about it is that I thought I would look different, like my face would do something weird. But I look the same, only a thinner, healthier version. This morning I woke up at four o’clock and I was in the gym here at the hotel. I’m going to be 50 years old this year and I need to start being healthy – I’ve been unhealthy all my life.”

Larry Paciotti hails from Hibbing, Minnesota, where his brother went to school with Hibbing’s other famous son, Bob Dylan. A fat, effeminate kid, Paciotti created the outrageous, say-anything, do-anything persona of Chi Chi LaRue and found he was suddenly the most popular girl in town. Not that that town could hold him. A huge porn fan, Paciotti moved to LA and began working at Catalina video, where he eventually got a chance to direct. The rest is history. Chi Chi LaRue is the most recognisable face in gay porn – and she’s not even in front of the camera.

Paciotti’s in town to promote his safe sex message, to DJ (at The Peel – tonight!) and to sit in on a panel discussion at Sircuit about safe sex on Sunday. He’s openly disdainful of barebacking, though he admits it’s on the rise.

“It’s boring, though, it’s actually becoming boring. It used to be, you know, ‘taboo’, and people would watch it and they were kind of anti-establishment. It’s a niche, I’ve always said it, it’s a niche and if you want high quality productions with gorgeous guys having great sex, watch my movies.

“I don’t do cumming in the mouth, I don’t do cumming in the ass, I don’t do anything like that. I get as close as I can without doing the actual thing. I love doing facial cum shots, and being really, really nasty – and then once I’m done on the set, I can leave and know that I didn’t do anything to endanger anybody.

“If you want filthy – I just did a scene with my exclusive Blake Riley and this beautiful muscle guy named David Taylor, where he took a garden hose and douched out Blake Riley’s ass and Blake Riley’s squirted the water back on his hard on while he was jacking off – it was fabulous! That’s nasty. And it’s safe!”

I ask Paciotti if Larry could have made it without Chi Chi.

“No. I think Chi Chi was definitely what it took. I’ve always said that Chi Chi helped promote the porn and the porn helped promote Chi Chi. A lot of people have said to me that I am the most recognisable face in gay porn, and that makes some people crazy because I’m the big drag queen and what does gay porn have to do with drag. But I’m a horny guy underneath all the make-up and wigs, and I make good porn – I love porn!”

Paciotti’s also into his music: he sings live as Chi Chi and he’s got an eye for new talent. “I’m loving Lady GaGa, and what’s cool about Lady GaGa is that she started around a year ago promoting herself. Last year at White Party while I was DJing she came up to me and gave me one of her singles – ‘Just Dance’ – and said will you play this.

“She’s made it. She’s now going to be the new Madonna, I predict she’s going to be the new queen of pop.”

As the interview winds up, we start chatting about Melbourne. Paciotti’s never been before, so I explain about the northside/southside thing and he asks the best place to shop, which gets us talking about shopping…

“I love Chanel,” he says. “Chanel’s my favourite. I bought myself, finally, a real Chanel purse recently. In Los Angeles a real Chanel purse doesn’t really mean anything, because people think it’s a knock off. So you can carry a knock and tell them it’s a real Chanel purse, or carry a real Chanel purse and try to convince them that it’s a real Chanel purse, which is foolish. So foolish. But with my new purse – you know, I know.