Gawker Fully Outs Shepard Smith, Profiles His Young Boyfriend

Rumors that Shepard Smith is gay have been floating around forever, but J.K. Trotter of the snark/gossip blog Gawker has seemingly confirmed, and outed, the Fox News host.

On Tuesday, Trotter wrote an article about Smith that simply related a story about how the Fox anchor was at a bar once and snapped on his waitress. Buried in the otherwise harmless piece was a nonchalant outing of Smith as a gay man, printed like it was common knowledge:

“Smith had arrived earlier that night with a straight couple and his own regular date, a muscular 6-foot-2 30-something white male, whom Bathtub Gin employees refer to as ‘his boyfriend.’ “

Other publications like Slate noted the apparent outing of Smith, who is well-known for being tight-lipped about his personal life. Most seemed to ignore the story, probably because it’s not that big of a deal for Shepard Smith to be gay. At least, maybe the mainstream media was trying to say by saying nothing that it shouldn’t be a big deal.

But Trotter and Gawker apparently thought it was a big enough deal to follow-up with a full and formal “Shepard Smith is gay” piece, as well as a profile on his apparent boyfriend.

Smith is reportedly dating 26-year-old Penn State grad Giovanni “Gio” Graziano. Gio worked as a production assistant under Smith on Fox Report and was then a Fox Business producer before abruptly quitting mid-July “to be with Shep,” said one of Gawker‘s sources.

They met at some point in 2011, started dating in 2012, and regularly frequent a Chelsea speakeasy called “Bathtub Gin” together. One of the waitresses there (same one Smith chewed out) apparently confirmed that Gio is Shep’s boyfriend.

Neither Shepard Smith nor Fox News have responded to multiple calls for comment from Gawker, and frankly, we don’t know what to tell you about this story. The gossip media is hit or miss, but a lot of people have casually assumed the Shepard Smith is gay for a while. Whether he is or isn’t, he’s clearly not interested in settling the record, so maybe we shouldn’t be so interested in seeing it settled.

What do you think? Does it matter whether or not Shepard Smith is gay?