Gunner de Medici

Gunner (born Christian de Medici on March 17, 1980) best known mononymously as "Gunner", is an American pornographic actor, filmmaker, designer and model, who first became widely known in 1998 with the launch of his "reality" pornographic website, GunnerWorld. It averaged 160,000 hits daily, making it the number one website in Europe and one of the top ten websites in the world. He is considered a gay icon in the LGBT community and has been called the “Most Downloaded Guy”. In 1998, he donned The name "Gunner", was a childhood nickname. Several adult film stars have since used the same name.

Gunner founded the adult entertainment company MoneyShot, Inc. in 1998. which was the parent company to GunnerWorld. This business expanded into creating and managing other niche websites that earned him many web design awards. By 2009, he launched a heterosexual website but still “male focused”, HoleAndaHeartbeat. In 2012 HoleAndaHeartbeat was sold and GunnerWorld was sold in January 2015.

Gunner has also crossed over into gay pop culture and continues guest-hosting and guest-starring at many events. He has designed clothing for celebrity clientele since 2000, but in 2014 he announced his retirement from [...] and launched a luxury brand fashion house, Xtian de Medici from the House of Medici.

Early life

De Medici was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. His birth father, Joseph, died in 1985. His mother, Linda Ann de Medici, remarried U.S. Air Force technical sergeant, David W. Kruse and relocated from Vacaville, California to Hickam Field Honolulu, Hawaii. He has a younger sister, Debbie. At age 12 his family was relocated to Dover Air Force Base Dover, Delaware where he attended Caesar Rodney junior high and high schools.

Career

Early

At the age of 12, while on a family trip to New York, de Medici was approached by Bruce Weber (photographer) who encouraged him to take up modeling and was soon introduced to Eileen Ford of Ford Models. By the age of 18, modeling was not as glamorous as he had hoped and although it proved to be very lucrative in supporting his interest in a musical career, it was short-lived when critics labeled his controversial stage productions as too "over-the-top" for a male performer but this small setback and the advice of several photographers and his music producer, Robbie Tronco to embrace his large "asset" proved to be a winning combination.

Pornographic film

At 19 years of age and still under a modeling contract, de Medici moved to Philadelphia and paired his fine art skills and experience in the fashion industry to pioneer a new “reality” concept for web-based [...]: GunnerWorld, a dot-com company featuring all well-endowed men, which not only documented him and his buddies in all their glory, but was delivered with [...]-edge design and introduced interactive features to home viewers.

De Medici's stage name, “Gunner”, was originally a nickname he hated. It was a name that his friends would jokingly call him because he could never get his arms (guns) bigger when they worked out and further joking that he had another big gun... because of this, he decide to embrace the very name he hated and go on to name his first website "GunnerWorld".

Gunner was unaware that every time soccer fans did a web search for the Arsenal F.C. soccer team in the U.K., the website that bore his name would pop up in the search engines. He and his name garnered so much international attention that in 2001, the BBC made a special United States trip just to interview him for "That Gay Show”, with Scott Capurro and Kristian Digby. His independent popularity and entrepreneurial approach to self-produce, design, direct and star in (as well as manage 152 other men) did not go unnoticed. He was awarded "Most Innovative Design" as well as "Best Website”.

After capturing the success of the “well-endowed" niche market, Gunner was approached and hired by high-profile chef and at the time, [...] star wannabe Scott McLeod A.K.A., Scott La Rock to conceptualize and create a new type of website. Gunner took the reigns and launched "Hole and a Heartbeat", a straight website and production company launched in 2006. While straight [...] typically focuses on women, HH made its tattooed bad boys the stars by combining [...] with music and requiring all models to be in "bands"...another first of its kind. As Scott's career took off, Gunner was also able to launch many other stars' careers, amongst them Ricky Sinz, who then showed interest in the gay side of [...].

Gunner's tattoos were influenced by this very project which in turn introduced yet another genre to the world of homoerotic [...] as well as catapulting Ricky Sinz into super stardom. By 2008, Gunner made (now) boyfriend Ricky Sinz a partner in the HH Franchise, whereby Mr. Sinz would buyout Scott La Rock's shares in the company. Presenting multiple new categories into [...], Gunner's profound effect on the industry left some frantically trying to catch up with his web-based business approach and grabbing the attention of many major studios. He landed with 'Raging Stallion Studios' and after negotiating a record breaking deal, Gunner became the highest paid adult film star for a single film to date. Also, it was the first film to be named after a website entitling it "Gunner World" in 2009. Gunner sold Hole and a Heartbeat in 2012 and then on January 16, 2015, GunnerWorld closed its doors after 17 years and was sold to a competitor company.

Appearances

Gunner is also known for achieving a high level of celebrity outside of [...] – bringing [...] itself closer to mainstream society's awareness and acceptance, making many appearances each year. Starting in 2006, with the launch of Hole and a Heartbeat, Gunner used his already established celebrity and fan base via GunnerWorld, to help him promote his new site. By making the focus of HH on the guys, giving them all new stage names and calling them the “HH Crew” as a collective, he was able to give his followers a new brand of [...] that had never been seen before. Gunner would encourage his models to present themselves as "rock stars” and would style them accordingly – just how he would present himself.

On January 26, 2007, Gunner made his first appearance along with Scott La Rock, Ricky Sinz and the “HH Crew”, at Denim Night Club in Philadelphia. This party kicked off the success of Hole and a Heartbeat and gained Gunner a new heterosexual fan base.

Gunner was in full swing by 2008, hosting and making over 20 appearances that year and nearly doubling it the following year. He added these sexually charged parties to his repertoire as a way to advertise the website’s presence to potential new members and as a vehicle to scout new models that were more than eager to sign up.

Between 2010 and 2011, Gunner teamed up with record producer Robbie Tronco and nightlife socialite, Kristi Kouture to handle the heavy influx of appearance requests for both heterosexual and gay night clubs. Gunner was now being booked for every conceivable venue, everything form gay pride events to straight AOE beach parties. He added other “Gay Icons” and GLBT legends to his events - over the years, including Lady Bunny, Sherry Vine, Bianca Del Rio and Kevin Aviance.<ref name=“Gay Cities">

After the sale of H.A.H. LLC. in 2012, he was now making appearances around the world in mainly the night club scene and was quoted saying, “It’s weird, I’m getting paid lots money just to show up at a bar and drink while people are at home buying memberships to GunnerWorld."<ref name=“Hot Gossip">

Gunner started combining fashion, [...] stars, singers and legendary drag queen performers to his acts, kicking off with his “Party Like A Pornstar” parties. The “Party Like A Pornstar” Brand became a popular “style" of party and was promoted along with a short film that was used as it’s advertisement. Later that year, the "PLP" party got the attention of Kevin Kaufman, creator and executive producer of the first season of Brovo's The Real Housewives of Orange County and I Married a Mobster to be made into a “reality television series” based on Gunner’s original concept of the party.

Clothing and Costume Designer

In 1992, Gunner was signed to Ford Models-(children’s division), where he gained his first experiences with fashion and would later draw from those experiences in the development of GunnerWorld.com.

Between 1993 to 1997 and still under contract with Ford Models, Gunner teaches himself how to design and sew. While recording an EP simply entitled “Christian”. he designs a wardrobe to match the concept he created for the artist himself and the album.

By the end of 1997, Gunner gives up on the pursuit of a musical career and focuses his attentions to the “booming" internet business. While creating the pornographic website GunnerWorld.com, he also designs and creates the clothing for “Gunner”, his new persona and MC of the site. In 1998, Gunner does not renew his contract with Ford Models and launches GunnerWorld.com. By the later part of that year, he employs 20 new models and creates both their personas and their clothing.

Between 2006 to 2012, Gunner conceptualizes and designs the website HoleAndaHeartbeat.com. Along with the website, he designs and creates the clothing for all the models featured on the site. Gunner starts designing and styling for many celebrities including singer-songwriter Sharon Little and Erika Schiff A.K.A. “Akire”, from American Idol (season 10).

From 2013 to 2015, Gunner is designing for his clients. He was commissioned to design and create one-of-a-kind couture dresses, movie set props, and costumes for concert tours.<ref name=“City Paper">