Joel Relampagos on staying sober, making feel-good reality TV & perfecting the shirtless thirst trap
Joel Relampagos is an Emmy-award winning producer who no longer lives in shame.
Mark
For the first part of his life, Joel Relampagos was used to living in shame.
Born into a conservative Filipino family, he felt isolated as a gay man. Tired of suppressing his true self, he came out in public fashion, starring in an early aughts MTV reality series called True Life: I’m Coming Out. While Relampagos’ announcement brought great liberation–as well as a 20-plus year career in entertainment–he soon faced another obstacle.
His drinking.
As an out gay producer living in L.A., Relampagos imbibed with the best of them. But waking up each morning with a fuzzy memory and expensive bar bill was not a sustainable path. “I have a problem that I cannot kick,” he remembers thinking. “In fact, it’s going to kill me if I continue this.”
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Six years ago, Relampagos checked himself into rehab and asked for help. He’s been sharing his story ever since.
What drives him to talk about his sobriety is the same desire for representation that propelled him to come out on MTV.
“I didn’t really have anyone to look up to in the media,” he tells Queerty. “I said, ‘Maybe I can be that other person for other people.’ That was what inspired me.”
A peek at Relampagos’ Instagram page shows a successful Emmy Award-winner enjoying the prime of his life in sunny L.A., with a beautiful Chihuahua at his side. Curious eyes will also notice a healthy dose of shirtless selfies.
Relampagos’ fitness journey coincides with his sobriety. A dedicated gym rat, Relampagos gets his intoxication these days from maxing out on the bench press or paddle-boarding in Malibu.
His physique shows that hard work pays off!
In between shoots (and sets), Queerty recently caught up with Relampagos to chat about the challenges of sobriety, misperceptions about reality TV and the perfect post-workout thirst trap. Here’s what he had to say…
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QUEERTY: What’s been the most challenging part about staying sober?
JOEL RELAMPAGOS: I didn’t know any different. I didn’t know what my life looked like without alcohol. I didn’t know what I looked like without a drink in my hand, how I felt without drinking at a party. It really was the hardest part, because you need to believe in something in order to change. I had to change myself to really believe that I can do this and I can be sober.
Do you think it’s more difficult as a gay person to be sober?
I’m also single and I’ve been on the dating apps. I’m like, “Oh my God! Everyone has a drink in their hand!” Everyone has that formula: shirtless photo, old photo, drink photo! I’m like, “Everyone drinks.” That was another thing that didn’t make me want to become sober. I would just make it harder for myself—the irony of that. On top of that, I live here in West Hollywood. There’s lots of people at the bars, lots of people doing Sunday Funday, lots of people doing the walk of shame after a night out. I really had to train myself. Gay is what I make it to be. It doesn’t mean I have to go and drink.
Your sobriety and fitness journey have coincided. How did you initially get yourself to the gym when you didn’t want to?
What is the tip? I did not see [exercise] as a physical thing. I didn’t see it as “my wast isn’t getting smaller” or “my biceps aren’t getting bigger.” Otherwise, it’s just gonna feel like you’re sitting there watching paint dry. I had to see it as a mental thing. Literally, this is my form of therapy to make me feel good, to clear my mind, to give me dopamine, to feel proud of myself. Not make it a physical thing. Then all of a sudden, I started shedding weight and gaining muscle. But the No. 1 thing was, to see it as more of a mental form of therapy than anything.
As you mentioned, you now have the body! What’s the key to perfecting the shirtless selfie?
Lighting and be a little sweaty. That’s it! You’ve gotta have good lighting and be a little sweaty. I’ve taken shirtless photos where the lighting is bad and I’m not sweaty. I’m like, “All right!” But a hot, shirtless selfie is definitely all about the lighting and some sweat.
What’s one thing about working in reality TV that people don’t know about?
They don’t know that I am on a mission to inspire and help people transform for the better. I believe there’s a lot of toxicity out there in the world. I refuse to work on shows that add to the anxiety and toxicity. You’ll see me working on shows that are inspiring, and don’t just change the lives of the people on the show, but also the people watching.
What projects are you most proud of?
I am so proud to be an executive producer for What Would You Do? on ABC. It’s the only show out there where I can take my personal experience and let that inspire scenarios. In the current season, I did scenarios—the show is a hidden camera show—and our goal is to see what people do in the midst of injustice and sticky situations. You’ll see two young gay boyfriends who are teenagers and there’s an actor who plays this homophobic bigoted person. And people step in. It restores my faith in humanity.
Tell us about your pup! He’s all over your Instagram…
I love dogs so much! This is Huckleberry. He’s my 13-year-old Chihuahua Spaniel. Then I had another dog, Thor, who passed away last year. I think that’s something I’m always going to be so proud of: I had such an amazing and awesome dog who’s always going to be in my heart. Sobriety teaches me to grieve without drinking my face off, or go through tough moments in life and try to feel it instead of escape it. That’s what I was doing with drinking. I was trying to escape.
What do you like to do for fun?
National parks are my favorite thing! I love that I’m close to Sequoia National Park, Yosemite National Park. I hop in my car and go camping. Then if I want to go further, you’ve got Zion and Bryce and the Grand Canyon. There’s something about national parks that I just love and get lost in. I was born in the Philippines, so I wasn’t raised to be a boy scout or explore forests and stay in a tent and build a campfire and have s’mores. It wasn’t until I was dating someone who used to be a boy scout. I was in my 20s and was like, “Holy sh*t! This is the coolest thing!” I’m a late bloomer when it was to nature. I love national parks!
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