Boyfriend Experience: an interview with comedian and former sex addict Jeff Leach

Boyfriend Experience: an interview with comedian and former sex addict Jeff Leach

04 July, 2012
by: Eliza Power

Jeff Leach faces his toughest challenge yet in his new Edinburgh show – monogamy. Eliza Power interviews.

“I wanted to do the boyfriend experience for the last 28 years of my life” says Jeff Leach, as we discuss his upcoming Edinburgh Festival show in a humid and deserted room in Camden’s Hawley Arms pub. Former hellraiser Leach isn't just referring to the title of his show, but the concept of being a boyfriend in general – a role he has been waiting his whole life for. Leach channelled this desire, and aspects of his lifestyle to create the show, but what exactly is Boyfriend Experience about? “I guess the whole show has been a look at the journey over the last 12 months of my life and the changes I have made. Only eight months ago I made a documentary where I became a male prostitute and got paid to have sex with a stranger.”

Yes, this is Jeff Leach, arguably the bluntest and most honest individual I have encountered in an interview. The actor, TV presenter and stand-up comedian was commissioned to make a documentary in 2011 on male prostitution, which saw him being paid £600 for sex: something that most men jokingly dream of, but in reality would run a mile from. How did Leach find the experience? “Not bad. I would have continued doing it if I didn’t think I could care about a woman enough to want to have a relationship with her in the future.” 

Leach made headlines earlier on this year with another revealing documentary on BBC3, Confessions of a Sex Addict, where he admitted to having slept with over 300 women. The topic should have made for grubby viewing but the course of the programme saw Leach encountering his former partners and facing up to his demons of sex, drink and drugs. “Even when I was whoring it up with my lascivious lifestyle, I cared about the people.” Was Leach open about his intentions with his partners? “A lot of the girls I slept with I would see regularly. I was honest. I wouldn’t say ‘Baby I want to be with you’ then fuck a girl in a toilet and never call her. I’d say: ‘Look, I will take you out, and offer you emotional support but I just don’t want to be your boyfriend.’”  

Times have clearly changed, as Leach has finally found the one thing he was looking for – love. “I became a boyfriend because I felt ready to be a boyfriend. My girlfriend is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I loved her as a friend already and thought ‘why am I not with this woman?” What about the thrill of unbridled sexual conquests? Isn’t he ever tempted to slip back into his old ways? Leach laughs. “I still look at a beautiful woman and think ‘I would love to have sex with her and 100 of her friends’, but I have self control now, and the reality is being in a relationship makes me immensely happy.”

Boyfriend Experience will feature visual media, characters, improvisation, and a comedy take on Justin Bieber’s ‘Boyfriend’. “Compared to the show I did at Edinburgh last year there is a massive change in terms of the maturity of the material," he tells me. "It is very sexual, and it’s still extremely revealing, but there is an intelligent response to the material I am putting out there.” Leach says he has a mixed fan base, the majority of who are younger women, gay men and mums. “Mums love me, I think they like a reformed bad boy. I love a nice mum. In fact, I’ve loved a few mums…” His knowing smile tells me isn’t joking.

Physically, Leach cuts an attractive, striking figure, decked in silver skull rings, tattoos and sleeveless denim vest. He looks more like a musician than someone who pounds the comedy circuits. His exuberant style compliments his gregarious persona, and it is this searing honesty – not pulling any punches in riffs on his sexual history and hedonism  – which has ruffled some fellow comics' feathers. Earlier this year, Michael Legge wrote a public blog, ripping Leach and his documentary on sex addiction to shreds. “Michael is mentioned in my Edinburgh show this year. How can you respect the opinion of a man who has never met you, never seen what you do creatively and yet slags you off on a blog?“

Critics aside, Leach is looking forward to a second year at Edinburgh which will be a big contrast to his 2011 visit. “I was living a slightly rock and roll lifestyle back then. This year I am going to spend every evening with my girlfriend and her daughter. Because of that, I think Edinburgh is going to be an immense experience.” How does he find the quality of his work has developed since his new found happy situation? “Now I can’t have sex with any of the audience after the show, my options are limited.” He laughs, “I had to write some good material instead.”

2012 holds a lot in store for Leach, including two feature films, two TV series in development and UK and European tours of Boyfriend Experience. As the interview draws to a close, I ask whether he thinks the boyfriend experience has saved him from himself? “Now I don’t drink, I don’t take drugs and I don’t fuck about, yet I am the most powerful I have ever been. It’s the fearlessness, that’s the drug that’s fuelling me now.”

That sounds like a pretty good drug to me.

Jeff Leach: Boyfriend Experience is at the Gilded Balloon in Edinburgh, from 1-27th August at 9:30pm 

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Eliza Power