Antonio Sabàto Jr. (born February 29, 1972) is an Italian-American model, actor, and aspiring politician. Sabàto found first fame in the 1990s, posing as an underwear model for Calvin Klein and appearing as Jagger Cates on the soap opera General Hospital from 1992 to 1995. By the early 2000s, Sabàto's career had started to wane, most of his acting credits attributed to guest appearances, reality TV, and low budget films. In recent years, Sabàto has received attention in the media for his involvement in politics and in 2017, he filed to run for U.S. Congress against incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Julia Brownley in California's 26th district.
Video Antonio Sabàto Jr.
Youth
Sabàto was born in Rome, the capital city of Italy, on 29 February 1972, a Leap Day. His father is Antonio Sabàto Sr., a film star of Italian heritage born in Sicily. His mother, Yvonne Kabouchy, is a realtor from Prague, and is of Czech and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage; her own mother was a Holocaust survivor. He has one sibling, a sister named Simonne. Sabàto and his family moved to the United States from Italy in 1985 and he became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1996. He received his high school diploma from Palisades Charter High School in Los Angeles, California. His parents are divorced; his mother remarried California-based businessman George F. Kabouchy in 1997.
Maps Antonio Sabàto Jr.
Career
Modeling
Represented in Los Angeles by fashion agent, Omar Albertto, Sabàto first gained attention as a Calvin Klein underwear model. In 1990 he appeared in Janet Jackson's "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" music video along with actor Djimon Hounsou, who is also a former CK underwear model (and also represented by Albertto).
Acting
Moving into acting, from 1992 through 1995 he appeared on the soap opera General Hospital, the science fiction series Earth 2 and on the prime time soap opera Melrose Place.
Throughout the late 1990s, he starred in various TV movies and direct-to-video films, as well as a supporting role in the 1998 feature film.
In 2003 he played the protagonist's lover Pablo in the movie Testosterone filmed in Argentina with Sonia Braga, David Sutcliffe, Jennifer Coolidge, Celina Font and Leonardo Brezicki.
From 2005 to 2006, Sabàto played Dante Damiano on the daytime soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, and in 2008, Sabàto reprised his role of Jagger Cates on the second season of General Hospital: Night Shift.
Sabàto made an appearance on Bones as a bouncer from a Jersey Shore club in season 6, episode 3, "The Maggots in the Meathead" in 2010.
In 2013 he played Father Zaragosa in the television series The League.
Reality television
In 2005, Sabàto appeared on But Can They Sing?, a celebrity reality singing competition on VH1, coming in 5th place.
He competed in the 2008 NBC competition Celebrity Circus, which he won. He noted during the show that both his mother and his mother's father had been circus performers.
In August 2009, Sabàto starred in My Antonio, a reality show on VH1 in which female contestants competed to win his heart. The show notably featured Sabàto's ex-wife, Tully Jensen, as one of the contestants (she came in 3rd place), and his mother also appeared on the show, providing advice. The show's winner was Brooke Barlow.
Sabàto and his family appeared on ABC's Celebrity Wife Swap on January 31, 2012. His then-fiancé Cheryl Moana Marie Nunes traded places on the show with WWE wrestler Mick Foley's wife, Colette Foley.
Sabàto competed on season 19 of Dancing with the Stars in 2014. He was paired with professional dancer Cheryl Burke, and they finished in 8th place.
Hosting
Since 2014, Sabàto has served as the host of a 30-minute long syndicated home remodeling show, Fix It and Finish It.
Politics
2018 Congressional campaign
On Monday, May 8, 2017, Sabàto filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission announcing plans to run for the 26th district Congressional seat in California as a Republican against incumbent Democrat Julia Brownley.
Views on illegal immigration
Regarding illegal immigration, Sabàto has said, "There should be no shortcuts for those who don't want to pay or wait". He supports Trump's wall on the southern border, and has said, "We need a wall."
Views Barack Obama
Sabàto has many harsh statements regarding former U.S President Barack Obama, including saying he has "no guts," accusing him destroying the U.S. economy, and asserting that Obama should be arrested and sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The former Democrat has also implied that Obama is the reason he left the Democratic Party.
For several years, Sabàto has maintained that, in his opinion, Obama, is not a Christian but a Muslim, despite Obama having told the public on numerous occasions that he is a Christian. The first instance of such a claim came in 2016, when Sabàto, after making a speech at the Republican National Convention, told ABC News "I don't believe he follows the God that I love and the Jesus that I love," and "If you follow his story, if you read his book, if you understand about Obama, I mean, that's not a Christian name, is it?" When pressed for evidence to back up his claims, Sabàto answered that it's "in his heart." Two years later, in 2018, he reaffirmed his belief that Obama is a Muslim when appearing on The View, saying "If he's [Obama's] not a Muslim, we should call him President Barry," and "What I was saying was, he changed his name to Obama because he followed the Islam religion when he was growing up so, I felt that once you're in that religion, you stay for the rest of your life." Contrary to Sabàto's statement, the former president did not change his name to Obama- his birth name is Barack Hussein Obama, II- and, in his youth, Obama did, in fact, go by the nickname Barry. Regardless, one's name isn't necessarily indicative of their religious affiliation.
Views Donald Trump
Sabàto endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2016. He spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention in support of the party's presumptive nominee.
Sabàto claimed that after he expressed his support for Trump, he was blacklisted from Hollywood. He later compared his struggle to find work in show business with that of being Jewish during the Holocaust and said celebrities mocked him on the social media website Twitter.
Personal life
Sabàto is currently married to Cheryl Moana Marie Nunes, whom he wed in 2012, and the two separated in December 2016. After Sabàto filed for divorce, Nunes alleged that Sabàto was abusing prescription drugs and had failed to complete even one month of a three month long drug rehabilitation program; Sabàto said that he was addicted to prescription sleep aids, not benzodiazepines as Nunes claimed, but did admit that he had a problem with substance abuse in the past, specifically crystal meth. He was previously married to Tully Jensen, from 1992 until 1993, and has three children, a son named Jack Antonio Sabàto (b. 6 August 1994), with Virginia Madsen, a daughter named Mina Bree Sabàto (b. 29 August 2002), and a son named Antonio Kamakanaalohamaikalani Harvey Sabàto (b. 1 May 2011) with his estranged wife.
Sabàto is a Christian but has, on several occasions, said that he also identifies as being Jewish. While he did have a Jewish grandmother, what is known about Sabàto's family history and his religious beliefs growing up, notably that his family was unaware his grandmother was Jewish until he was a teenager and that he believed Jesus as a small child, strongly imply that neither Judaism nor Jewish culture played roles in his upbringing.
He has several tattoos, including the Batman logo on his lower back and the yin yang symbol surrounded by Chinese characters on his arm.
Filmography
See also
- List of male underwear models
References
External links
- Official website
- Antonio Sabàto Jr. on IMDb
- SoapCentral.com: Sabato profile
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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