Original Project Runway winner Jay McCarrol might be a "struggling" fashion designer, however he apparently isn't so hard-up that he can't afford a home.
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"Jay is not homeless," a friend told the New York Post in a report published Thursday. "He lives in a beautiful building on the Upper West Side."
Rumors that Project Runway's first-season champ was currently without a permanent residence were based on comments he made during an interview published as part of this month's New York Magazine cover story.
"I haven't been living anywhere for two years," McCarroll told New York Magazine during the interview, which was conducted at his "studio." "I always sleep at other people's houses. I sleep here if I'm drunk. It's a good halfway place if I have to do work the next day." The New York Magazine interviewer then followed up by asking McCarroll if there was a shower in his studio.
"No, just a bathroom," he answered. "I've become friends with [other 'struggling' designers], and I've had them all over here [his studio], and they're like, 'Wow, this place.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, but you have an apartment! I don't have that.'"
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After the cover story was published, New York Magazine reportedly received what it described as an "angry voice-mail message" from Nancy Kane, McCarroll's publicist and friend, on Tuesday.
"[The suggestion McCarroll is homeless is] unequivocally untrue," Kane reportedly told New York Magazine in the voicemail, which the magazine detailed in a Thursday report on its website. "His studio is a live/work space, and it might not be ideal, but it is more than a lot of people have in New York City and he pays rent every month."
However Kane's voicemail explanation didn't really shed light on McCarroll's living situation, prompting her to allegedly tell various gossip columns that New York Magazine had "fallen for a hoax," and add that the Project Runway winner does have a "beautiful apartment building at 72nd Street and Riverside Drive."
"It is what it is," McCarroll told the New York Daily News in a report published Thursday. "I was just having fun."
McCarroll apparently won't have any problems paying rent either, as his friend told the Post he "has recently been tapped to head up the re-launch of classic '80s sportswear brand Camp Beverly Hills, and also has his own line and show premiering on QVC this fall."
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio