US ‘Bachelor’ star: ‘I’m not homophobic, I have a gay cousin’

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Juan Pablo Galavis, a US TV star who said that gay people shouldn’t be on TV because they are “more pervert”, has denied he is homophobic as he has “a cousin who is gay”.

The ‘Bachelor’ star said last month that a gay version of the Bachelor wouldn’t work because gay people are “more pervert” and the show would not be suitable.

He told Good Morning America yesterday: “I have a cousin who is gay. His sister is a nun. So it’s been around my house all my life. So, to me, it was a misunderstanding.”

He also re-iterated his earlier claims that his poor English was to blame, saying: “It’s been hard because, to me, when I speak English, it happened to me two months of filming, sometimes the words that I used were not interpreted the way that they should be interpreted, or I use a wrong word. It was a misuse of a word.”

He had previously said that he has a gay best friend, saying: “I have many gay friends and one of my closest friends who’s like a brother has been a constant in my life especially during the past 5 months.”