Ex-friend of ‘pool boy’ sues to block Hulu’s ‘God Forbid’ movie on Falwell sex scandal
A lawsuit filed in Miami seeks to block Hulu from airing Billy Corben’s new documentary on the Jerry Falwell Jr. sex scandal, with one of the men involved in the saga suing over audio recordings he said were made without his knowledge.
Gordon Bello is a former friend of Giancarlo Granda, the young man from Miami branded “the pool boy” in the media storm surrounding his business and personal relationship with Falwell and his wife, Becki, after meeting them as a 20-year-old working at the Fontainebleau resort.
The Hulu documentary “God Forbid” includes recordings comedian Tom Arnold made of Bello talking about his dispute with Falwell and Granda over his alleged piece of a South Beach hotel deal, a falling out that allegedly included threats by Bello over personal photos of Becki Falwell he had obtained.
READ MORE: Miami lawyer: I changed my identity after Michael Cohen intervened in Falwell dispute
At one point in 2015, Michael Cohen, then a lawyer for future president Donald Trump, intervened on behalf of the Falwells to negotiate with Bello’s lawyer to keep the photos private.
Arnold, a Cohen acquaintance, recorded a conversation with him discussing his role in pursuing the photos for the Falwells, and then recorded a subsequent conversation with Bello. The suit does not list a date for the recorded conversations. Bello said he wasn’t aware Arnold recorded their telephone conversations.
In an interview Monday, Arnold said he told Bello he was recording their conversation. “I said I’ve got to be upfront,” Arnold said. “I’m going to record you and you should record me.” Arnold did not provide the Herald a recording of him telling Bello that. He provided a 2021 text exchange where Bello said it was wrong to record him without his knowledge. Arnold responded: “I 100% told you I was sharing some of our conversations....I’m sorry if you were surprised.”
Arnold said he recorded the conversation legally in New York, where the law allows someone to record a conversation without the consent of the other person. “Michael Cohen sent me a list of where you can record,” Arnold said.
The lawsuit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court asks a judge to block Hulu from airing the conversations Arnold recorded. It also names as defendants Arnold and Rakontur, the production company behind the documentary, owned by Corben and his producing partner, Alfred Spellman. Corben said Saturday evening he had not seen the lawsuit and was not in a position to comment.
Bello met the Falwells through Granda and helped steer them to a South Beach hostel the family purchased in a 2012 deal that included Granda as a minority partner.
Granda and Bello had a falling out over the matter, and Bello later sued him and the Falwells for an allegedly promised piece of the deal for him and his father, a former developer named Jett Bello. They were know in Miami as Jesus Fernandez and Jesus Fernandez Jr. Both changed their names in 2016, citing unspecified concerns about the legal dispute.
The documentary is set to premiere Tuesday on Hulu, but preview copies have already circulated in the media.
A former legislative aide to the MIami-Dade County Commission, Bello now is launching a government consulting business in Miami. In the suit he said his business “depends on public trust and reputation.” Bello, who has not seen the documentary, said his understanding of the alleged defamation comes from accounts relayed to him by reporters and reviewers who saw the preview version.
The suit is listed on the Miami-Dade County Circuit Court docket. As of early Monday afternoon, there was no entry for the emergency hearing Bello’s lawyer requested in a separate filing earlier in the day. That filing claims “God Forbid” is “attempting to breathe relevancy” into the Falwell scandal “through illegal recordings and the creation of a new villain, Bello.”
This story was originally published October 29, 2022 at 5:30 PM.