True Blood alum Mehcad Brooks
says he is MSNBC host Rachel Maddow's biggest fan.
The 30-year-old Brooks said his
devotion to Maddow goes beyond the pale.
“I'm a huge fan,” he
told gay entertainment website AfterElton.com. “There's not a
bigger Rachel Maddow fan. I'm a Maddowphile.”
“She's a national treasure,” he
added. “I think that we need honest voices like that and we need
journalism like that.”
Brooks, who played Benedict “Eggs”
Talley in the second season of HBO's vampire drama True Blood,
can now be seen playing Terrence “T.K.” King on cabler USA
Network's football drama Necessary Roughness.
He's also the former spokesman for Calvin Klein's X brand of
underwear, which has earned him a devoted gay following.
“I appreciate”
my gay following Brooks said, then added: “I grew up with a gay
uncle who I was very close to and my parents are very liberal and
there was a time where … I think every young person questions what
their sexuality is. And I did the same thing. I had questions in my
head and I realized that I was straight and I thought, 'Well, why is
this any different for anybody else?'”
“I'm a human
rights activist and it doesn't make any sense not to treat everybody
the exact same way. It just doesn't make any sense, it's counter
intuitive, it's inhuman and it has to stop.”