“I didn’t want to see Paul”: Danny Roberts on meeting ex in The Real World Homecoming reboot

The Real World: New Orleans star Danny Roberts revealed in an interview that he had finally found "closure" with ex-boyfriend Paul Dill. Roberts was reunited with him and the rest of the cast on Paramount+ show The Real World Homecoming reboot of the hit reality TV series.

Danny Roberts was well known for his stint in the ninth season of the series franchise, and his relationship with the then U.S. Army Captain Paul Dill made several headlines. In the interview, he revealed his premonitions about meeting his ex-boyfriend and said:

“To be honest, I actually pushed back against it. I didn’t want to see Paul, I didn’t want to revisit this. Production pushed for it, but I’m actually thankful they did.”

The star has also been very open about his struggles with HIV, he has publicly spoken about it with several news outlets and also at schools across the country on diversity in sexuality, coming out, and public policy, among many others. He has now joined Melissa Beck, David "Tokyo" Broom, Jamie Murray, Matt Smith, Julie Stoffer and Kelley Wolf for the reboot series.

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The Real World star Danny Roberts breaks down his experience on meeting with ex-boyfriend Paul Dill and the show

The reality TV star rose to fame with a career on The Real World: New Orleans. Danny was charismatic, handsome and a rational person on television, and viewers loved to watch him every week. The most talked about topic was his sexual identity as well as his relationship with Paul.

Continuing on his experience of meeting his former boyfriend on the reboot series, he told Page Six:

“Because it ended up being positive closure. I think [Paul] actually really wanted to come and genuinely apologize for a lot of what had played out [in our relationship]. I’m glad it all happened.”

By highlighting his experience as a gay man in America and his relationship with a U.S. Army Captain who agreed to film, so long as his face was obscured on the show, he became the poster child for the movement against the Clinton administration’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that banned openly gay people from serving in the military.

Speaking about the same, The Real World star said:

“[Some] call it brave. Maybe I call it young, naive, infatuated and in love at the time? I was just in the moment back then, not thinking about the longer term ramifications. You don’t think about how you’re going to be this person and represent this issue for a lot of your life.”

Although the couple made a great impact and proved to be an inspiration for many gay viewers back then, Danny's stint on the MTV show The Real World: New Orleans along with his boyfriend only made it more difficult for the duo. The star eventually broke up with Paul in 2006.

“It negatively impacted our lives. He was still in the military. Ironically, I had to go back into the closet in many ways and live a secret life for years with him. That was most of my 20s. So, in many ways, I feel like a lot of my earlier adult years were kind of stolen from me. I just had no idea what I was getting into at the time.”

Danny revealed that although he was skeptical about meeting Paul, they could sit together and understand what happened back then, which gave them the closure they needed.

"It was the first time we were able to sit down and talk beyond that and see it from a distance and realize so much of it was not about us. It was about the circumstances. So that brought a lot of peace.”

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The Real World star, who shares daughter Naiya Sage, 6, with ex-husband Wes Pereria, currently splits time between New York City and rural Vermont, where he owns a cabin and is seeing someone new.

“I met a guy and we’ve been seeing each other for about a year and a half now. He runs a big dairy farm up [in Vermont], so it’s a very different life now.”

The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans is available to stream on Paramount+, with new episodes dropping on Wednesdays.