An ex-boyfriend of fashion designer Calvin Klein became roommates with a gay couple in Santa Rosa during the pandemic, then started dealing meth out of their house, then got arrested and sent to prison for two years, and now he's suing because he wants his stuff back.

It's a messy, sordid story out of the North Bay, and it centers on Nick Gruber, a onetime gay porn performer who over a decade ago was Calvin Klein's first publicly acknowledged same-sex relationship.

As ABC 7's Dan Noyes reports, Richard Jones and his husband, Alfonso Monreal, were seeking a roommate during the pandemic, in 2021, and they took in Gruber, who was then 31 years old. He turned out to be something of a problem tenant, but I will say it feels like there was a lack of due diligence here on the part of Jones and Monreal — Monreal tells ABC 7, "I did my research, and I did a background check, and I was like, OK, Calvin Klein's ex-boytoy, ex-boyfriend."

But he clearly didn't do much research.

Gruber was something of a tabloid fixture in the New York rags in the last decade, having been photographed at many red carpet events during his year-long relationship with Klein — the two dated from late 2010 until early 2012 or so — before it was revealed that Klein made Gruber take a lie detector test after a housekeeper saw him hosting an overnight guest.

Months after breaking up with Calvin Klein in 2012, Gruber was arrested and charged with assault after a late-night party incident in which he allegedly sucker punched a guy and grabbed his crotch. (He was also found with cocaine.)

And then by December 2012, he was seen trying to get into various A-list parties in New York with a new boyfriend — and Page Six reported that he had been calling publicists all over town saying "I'm in Page Six," referring to the story about the lie detector and the breakup with Klein.

Then in 2019, Gruber was arrested again for bludgeoning a man with a frying pan and stealing meth from him. This also happened in New York, and the New York Post noted that when he showed up in court and a Post photographer jokingly asked for a closeup, Gruber replied, "How does my hair look?"

All of this is publicly available information, and a cursory Google search also comes up with a local story from January 2010, just a few months before Gruber ended up involved with Calvin Klein — and around the time his porn went online, as Sean Cody's Zeke (link NSFW!!) and as Nick London on NextDoorMale. Gruber, a Sebastopol native, turns out to have been responsible for a raucous party at a Guerneville vacation rental at which a deck collapsed and a teen girl was seriously injured.

Anyway, the Santa Rosa couple did their "research" and let Gruber move in. The nature of their dispute is not clear, but it probably had to do with the drug dealing. Gruber seems to want to deny the label of "dealer," telling Noyes that he was "in the drug industry" and he was merely a "broker" connecting suppliers and buyers. But the nine pounds of meth and $10,000 in cash that police found locked in a safe in his closet told a different story. He also had a semiautomatic handgun in there.

Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Patricia Seffens tells ABC 7 that they looked up Gruber's record, saw that he had a prior felony conviction and was still on probation, so he had to submit to a warrantless search of his property when police came to the home amid the landlord-tenant dispute.

Gruber was arrested and ended up serving two years in prison, as ABC 7 reports. But upon his release in 2023, the trouble for Jones and Monreal only continued, with Gruber filing suit against them claiming that they owed him $182,000 for lost property — including a $10,000 Rolex watch and a bunch of designer clothing. Jones said he'd served Gruber an eviction notice and told him he'd be disposing of his property within six months.

He also filed for $233,000 in other damages.

A judge tossed out most of his claims, but ultimately ruled that he was owed $8,683, which Jones, tearfully, tells ABC 7 he can't afford, especially after legal expenses involved with this lawsuit.

The moral of the story here is that background checks — and cursory Google searches that aren't just porn — are important when considering letting someone into your home.

See the full ABC 7 piece below. Gruber, by the way, says that he's "studying" to become a firefighter, has been clean and sober since prison, and is working on a book. He also claimed, over a decade ago, to be working on a book about his affair with Klein, but now he says that will only occupy one chapter.

Top image: Calvin Klein and Nick Gruber attend the "Picturing Marilyn" Exhibition opening with a screening of "My Week With Marilyn" at Milk Studios on November 9, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Robin Marchant/WireImage)