RENT BOY BLOG MYSTERY DEEPENS

As the alleged tell-all rent boy blog is updated with new celebrity names, suspicions are deepening that the discredited Juan Uys may be behind it all.

The blog is written by an author claiming to have worked as a male prostitute and that he previously serviced the 12 well-known South African men listed. He has so far refused to reveal his identity.

Most recently, a highly respected journalist has been listed as the 12th alleged client, with apparently 38 more names set to be published over the coming weeks.

While a number of newspapers say that they have been in touch with the blogger, who is said to be going under the name Skye and living in Australia, Mambaonline has been unable to contact the blog’s author. Attempts to e-mail the address given on the site have resulted in error messages stating that the e-mail address does not exist.

Independent Democrats councillor Simon Grindrod, who is listed in the blog, and has laid an official charge of crimen injuria in Cape Town against the blog’s author, told the Sunday Times that he suspects that the mystery author may be none other than Juan Uys.

In November last year Grindrod laid a charge of fraud against Uys for running the controversial Crime Expo website, which warned off tourists from visiting South Africa by highlighting sensational criminal incidents. Under the name of Neil Watson, it is said that Uys also solicited money from the public through the website. The site has since closed down.

Grindrod believes that the publishing of his name on the rent boy blog may well be Uys’s revenge.

The notorious Uys was previously known as the head of the discredited Gay and Lesbian Alliance (GLA). The organisation, widely believed to consist of Uys under a number of aliases, claimed that it had 100 000 members. It regularly issued outrageous statements, claims and demands which were often reported verbatim by the media, but were almost never substantiated. Uys himself has been elusive, never appearing for face to face meetings, and being almost impossible to contact or track down.

LGBT organisations and media have in the past issued a number of statements distancing themselves from Uys and the GLA, and questioning the organisation’s legitimacy.