“What’s with the hair and the teeth and… he’s aging poorly.” – Patti Stanger
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Kevin Grangier & Anthony Cools: client intros
Destin tells us that we have “something different” in this edition of The Millionaire Matchmaker: “a gay millionaire.” Patti Stanger explains that it’s very important to expand the “market” for The Millionaire’s Club by bringing super rich gay men and women into the fold.
Check out our full and snark-tastic Millionaire Matchmaker episode guide and updates! Trash and treasure in equal increments, we promise.
They hadn’t done this for the previous nine years, but for “reasons” the right timing is now, apparently.
“We want the gays to feel like we’re on their side,” Patti tells the camera.
Then Patti tells Destin and Chelsea that “the only problem” is keeping “the gays” from having sex with each other, and they all crack up.
“Not all gay people are that promiscuous,” Chelsea says.
“Are they still going to bathhouses?” Patti muses.
Watching this scene from the vantage point of the early days of the second Trump administration, it just doesn’t seem very amusing.
But moving on.
Via intro video, we meet Kevin Grangier, 44. He has four houses, including one in Kentucky that he fascinatingly refers to as “an 1857 antebellum property.” He’s owned a branding company for a decade and now has several other businesses as well.
Patti sees Kevin as a workaholic who hasn’t had time to focus on a serious relationship.
Then we have Anthony Cools, 42, who tells us, “I act 16.”
Patti’s first reaction to Anthony: “What’s with the hair and the teeth and… he’s aging poorly.”
Anthony makes his living from performing in a show at the Paris casino in Las Vegas, Nevada called “The Anthony Cools Experience.”
“It’s a very adult themed hypnosis show,” he tells us. “Where we make people screw chairs and have orgasms, and things of that nature.”
We also learn that Anthony Cools frequently refers to Anthony Cools in the third person. So he’s that guy.
He adds that it’s a “plus” that he makes “women orgasm with one hand.”
“Anthony’s biggest challenge is to get over his ego,” Patti assesses.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Kevin Grangier & Anthony Cools: Patti meets the clients
While Patti is on the way to meet Kevin, we learn that he splits his time living in “an apartment in New York, a house in Palm Springs, the farm in Kentucky, the house in West Hollywood.”
Not bad.
Kevin tells Patti that he’s looking for someone who is grounded and has a direction in his life, with some ambition.
Patti cuts from this topic to ask him if he’s usually on top when he has sex, “or on the bottom.”
See: my comments above.
I felt for Kevin because he clearly seemed uncomfortable with the question. He’s also quite charming and subtle in telling the camera that he hopes that as Patti’s first client that he can give her “a little bit of a different perspective.”
In Anthony Cool’s little video montage, he tells us that he’s really hilarious. Oh, by the way, this is when I noticed that Anthony’s frosted tips make him look like he should be in a Saturday Night Live sketch set sometime in the 2000s. But then I realized his look would be too over the top for something like The Californians.
Anthony… or Anthony Cools, rather, also tells us that he’s got multiple Lambos in his garage and “a smile on my face every morning.”
It’s always hilarious when these tools then change gears, as we see here when Anthony says, “I just want to find a woman who understands me for who I really am.”
When Patti sits down with Anthony, his smarmy smile drops immediately when Patti asks him up front if she can do “a makeover on you.”
“You don’t think that this is hot?” Anthony asks while indicating his face in a Vegas-y magician-like maneuver that Gob Bluth from Arrested Development would surely approve of.
It’s pretty hilarious when Patti goes down the list of what she wants to change about him, including his “zebra hair.”
When Anthony tells Patti that his last relationship ended because his ex-girlfriend lied to him about wanting his money or some such, Patti assesses that perhaps Mr. Cools’ “picker” is off. Things go right back to being hilarious though when Anthony’s face drops when Patti feels compelled to insist, “No hypnotizing on your date.”
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Kevin Grangier & Anthony Cools: the recruiting session and mixer
Highlights from the recruiting session include:
- When Patti asks one guy, “How do I know that you’re really gay?” the dude quickly retorts, “I have references.”
- Patti’s straight forward questions continue with Jorie, an entrepreneur: “Are you a porno star? Stripper?” When the woman insists she’s not, Patti insists that she’s sending stripper/”porno star” vibes.
- When Tamara, an anchorwoman, tells Patti and crew that she’s 32, Patti spits back, “You’ve been 32 for 10 years.”
- Being an equal opportunity offender, I guess, Patti asks Christopher if he’s gone from “white to black” because the guy got a tan in between sending in his headshot and the recruiting session.
The recruiting session takes place at a 45,000 square foot mansion in Beverly Hills, which we’re told is owned by an unnamed friend of Patti’s.
While Patti’s two clients meet each other, we see an extended scene where men and women attending the mixer try to decide which one is “straight versus gay.”
For the mini-date round, Anthony Cools cools his jets enough to set his sights on Brie, an outgoing comedian, and Lyndi, an actress. Kevin has trouble deciding on his picks, but ends up going with Randy, a 35-year-old consultant, and Jared, a brand representative.
During their mini-date, Brie tells Anthony that she thought he was “the gay one” because of his highlights, and to his credit, he takes it as a compliment. And then… Lyndi tells him the exact same thing.
For the next round, Anthony opts for Brie while Kevin again struggles a bit on who to choose but lands on Randy, who makes him smile.
“Viva la gay, and viva la straight!” Patti shouts happily.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Kevin Grangier & Anthony Cools: Kevin and Randy’s first date
Kevin flies Randy into Anchorage, Kentucky to his home there, which he simply refers to as Bellwood. This seems like a pretty opulent first date set-up to me, but then again, I don’t own property in four different cities around the country.
Randy seems to handle it really well and tells Kevin about how he prioritizes work/life balance. “I need help with that,” Kevin admits.
Kevin then drives Randy to the Woodford Reserve bourbon distillery, where they are taken on a private tour. The two seem to enjoy themselves as they keep joking around about when they get to the part of the tour where they get to taste the bourbon. This quickly cuts to them possibly trying to sneak off camera, but we get footage of them making out, so indeed they are enjoying themselves!
Later that night, they have an intimate conversation about their lives and when they came out to people in their lives that they’re gay. Randy uses this opportunity to reveal that he’s not out with his family, and it’s mostly “a few good friends that know.”
Kevin handles the conversation well and is understanding about how everyone’s journey is unique. It was on my mind that Randy might be okay if his appearance on The Millionaire Matchmaker is the way that other people in his life find out how he identifies, and at one point he corroborates this, waving to the camera to tell his parents he’s gay while smiling.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Kevin Grangier & Anthony Cools: Anthony and Brie’s first date
It’s two out-of-Los Angeles dates on this edition of The Millionaire Matchmaker, with Anthony flying Brie into Las Vegas for their date.
“God only knows what’s going to happen,” Brie admits to the camera before the date begins.
Just when I was starting to soften in terms of my opinion of Anthony Cools, he tells the camera that he’s going to “test” Brie by trying to convince her that he has no money to see how she reacts. The prank, I suppose you can call it, involves his taking her to a Vegas home that he purchased “just to store stuff in.”
Sidenote that I guess Anthony is not familiar with the concept of self-storage facilities.
I appreciated her Brie’s initial reaction to this, which is seeing his “living conditions” through the eyes of a comedian.
Anthony then takes Brie to an Irish pub called The Three Angry Wives. Anthony eats up even more of their date together pressing his prank or test or whatever, telling her here that he’s “not really a millionaire.”
Brie is understandably confused as to why Anthony would be using Patti’s services at all under such a scenario. “Patti’s gonna be mad, but it doesn’t bother me,” she concludes to the camera.
When she tells him that as long as he has $5 in his bank account, “we’re good,” and seems to genuinely mean it, Cools presses even further, telling Brie that he has a big time “gambling problem.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t live in Vegas,” she responds jokingly, but at this point I’m hoping that she will run away from this dude.
Finally, Anthony takes Brie to his “real” and massive house as a “big reveal,” and finally tells her that “everything was a test” and that she “passed with flying colors.”
“Honestly, I really don’t like being tested,” she tells the camera, and you get the sense that she would have been more fine with his actually having been a broke dude with a gambling problem if indeed that had been the truth and he was being honest with her about it.
She goes further in saying that she’s always had to “prove herself” in relationships in the past, and that adds to her resentment.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Kevin Grangier & Anthony Cools: post-dates upshot
Patti and crew call Brie first, who relays, “Uh… he played a trick on me.”
Patti calls Anthony’s trick “disgusting.” Brie goes on to say that she had been really enjoying the date and liked him until the big reveal, but finding out about the charade turned her off.
Patti then gets Anthony on the phone. Mr. Cools says that he had a great time, and sounds pretty smug when he adds, “I pulled the wool over her eyes,” and then says, “I had to test this girl.”
“It was very funny,” he then says.
Patti tells her that his date does not deserve to be treated this way. The conversation gets nasty from there, and she hangs up on him.
I must add that it’s pathetic when Patti tells the camera that she’s thinking about throwing Anthony out of The Millionaire’s Club.
Patti later meets Kevin at a café. Kevin handles Patti’s dumb question well (“Was there a bottom and top situation?”), and then talks about how he really likes Randy and is comfortable with however Randy would like to handle his relationships with his friends and family.
The end of episode captions then tell us: “Anthony and Brie never saw each other again. Anthony is still working on his trust issues.” And: “Kevin and Randy have spent more time together. Kevin is learning to put work aside and devote more time to dating.”
Some stats and info about The Millionaire Matchmaker – “Kevin & Anthony”
TV SHOW – The Millionaire Matchmaker
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 12
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Bravo
GENRE – Dating Shows, Reality TV, Trashtastic TV
AIR DATE – May 7th, 2009
GOOGLE PLAY DESCRIPTION – Patti hits the town with her girlfriends who are visiting from Miami, and the girls dish out many good stories on Patti. Back at the office, The Millionaires Club takes on Kevin, a PR/branding guru and Patti’s first gay millionaire. As the founder and owner of his own boutique PR firm, Kevin’s life is consumed by work. Patti’s challenge is to get Kevin to find time for dating and love. Patti’s other millionaire this week is a showy Vegas entertainer named Anthony, who has a show at the Paris hotel in which he hypnotizes audience members to do adult-themed antics. Patti is concerned that the sexual nature of Anthony’s work will be a deterrent to women and asks him to downplay his show, but Anthony feels that whomever he goes on a date with needs to understand and appreciate what he does.