August 29

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bookish:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Towel boys:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A secret no more:

 

Harley (left) and Jonathan (right)

Jonathan Knight, host of HGTV’s “Farmhouse Fixer” and member of “boy” band NKOTB, announced this week that he and partner Harley Rodriguez (actor) had married in secret, albeit at an unspecified date. They were not rushing things. The pair met in 2008, just after New Kids on the Block (1984-1994) reunited and resumed touring and recording. The pair have been engaged since 2016 and planned to hold a wedding ceremony in 2019, but Covid. The couple now uses hyphenated last names, so Jonathan Knight-Rodriguez it is.

A quick glance at YouTube videos from the NKOTB 2022 tour confirms that this is indeed five 50-some-year-olds gyrating around trying to act and dress like teenagers (some even baring their freshly shaved chests), just like so many other geriatric rock groups that just don’t know when to hang it up. Jonathan is the band’s oldest member (53). Embarrassing, but the HGTV show is solid. It’s filmed in Massachusetts, where Jonathan and Harley reside on their own farm.  “Farmhouse Fixer” first aired in March 2021. For season two, which Jonathan describes as a “family affair,” Harley has joined the cast and is clearly identified as “husband”.

Your blogger must confess he had never heard of Jonathan Knight until last Wednesday, when he watched an episode of “Farmhouse Fixer” at a friend’s (wait for it) farmhouse. Jonathan speaks with a shockingly heavy Boston accent, but the joy he takes in his construction craft is infectious. In a TV interview, Knight casually used the word “husband” while discussing his HGTV series, all the while sporting a flashy wedding band. So the jig was up. Their relationship was certainly no secret all these years, but Jonathan’s web info states they have been engaged since November 2016, when Knight proposed while they were on vacation in Africa. Yet multiple Internet sources inform that the guys have been married since June 26, 2015. Someone needs to fix the math here.

All that off towards one side, best wishes to the pair. Jonathan continues to tour with NKOTB while filming new episodes of “Farmhouse Fixer”, a show about rescuing and remodeling old farmhouses in New England. If this sort of thing is to your taste, check out my favorite HGTV offering (and much gayer), "Bargain Block", to see what Keith and Evan are up to.