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Ex-wife fumes over Fab Five trashing

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

By BOB IVRY
STAFF WRITER


For Dawn Steele, last night's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" seemed more like an episode of "As the Stomach Turns."

There were the Fab Five, Bravo's quintet of gay experts on matters of style and taste, storming into an apartment and trashing the ugly furniture.

"That furniture was mine," Dawn Steele said. "It wasn't furniture to die for, but those end tables and the dressers in the bedroom belonged to my grandparents. I was a little bent."

Until Oct. 5, she was married to the man who was made over by the Fab Five, Army Spec. Ray Steele. She left the furniture behind in the Burlington County apartment when she and her daughter moved in with her mother in Maywood.

Not only were Nana and Pop-Pop's end tables tossed on the scrap heap, but Dawn had to sit there and watch while "Queer Eye" gave the soldier and his new wife Maria a party featuring a renewal of their wedding vows.

Trouble was, Dawn says, Ray was married to Maria during most of 2004 - at the same time he was married to Dawn.

"I wish Bravo would have checked on Ray a little," Dawn Steele says. "Do a background check, something. How could they glorify this person?"

No doubt Dawn Steele is an ex-wife with an axe to grind. But if her allegations are true, "Queer Eye" got conned.

"Issues were raised by a third party concerning Mr. Steele's appearance on our show," Bravo spokesman Bill Brennan said. "We've looked into the matter and determined that the claims are not true." Brennan declined to comment further.

Ray Steele acknowledged in a telephone interview Tuesday that he and Maria were married in Maria's native Colombia but refused to say exactly when the wedding took place. The Bravo Web site, too, says that the couple were married in Colombia, adding that the union "is not recognized by the armed forces" - hence the need for a renewal of vows, which took place Oct. 22, after Ray's divorce from Dawn.

On its Web site, Bravo touted Steele's imminent departure for Iraq as a pressing concern for the show's Fab Five, saying they had "less than two weeks for Ray and Maria to get married stateside in order to ensure that she and their year-old daughter Sabrina receive the benefits that will help them get by while he's away serving his country."

The episode was taped in October. Ray Steele remains stateside.

"I'm on standby," the Teaneck native said Tuesday. "I could go anytime."

Army spokeswoman Carolee Nisbet confirmed that the 38-year-old Ray Steele is an E-4, or specialist, but would not comment on his allegedly tangled marital status.

"As of now, there are no pending charges against him," Nisbet said. She added that members of Steele's unit, the 50th Main Support Battalion of the 42nd Infantry Division, had recently been deployed to Iraq.

Ray Steele said Maria contacted "Queer Eye," asking for a makeover before her husband shipped out.

"The next thing I know, they're storming our apartment," he said. The guys had a lot of fun with what the Web site called the "lowlights" - a dining room table that had no chairs and the clothesline strung across a bedroom.

When the couple saw the changes the Fab Five had made, "We were in tears," the soldier said. "They replaced every piece of furniture, even got us a new crib. It was beautiful." In addition, he said they gave him a crate of clothing to bring to Iraq, gift cards totaling $5,000 and two computers, so he and Maria could e-mail each other after his deployment.

"We loved it," he said.

Ray Steele said he is the father of five children, a fact the Bravo Web site overlooked. He referred all questions about his marital status to his Paterson-based lawyer, José Bastarrika.

Bastarrika insisted he knew nothing about the allegations of bigamy.

"They may have had a ceremony in Colombia to profess love for one another, but no legal wedding that I'm aware of," Bastarrika said.

"I don't see what the controversy is," Bastarrika added. "The show was a fun process. Ray had no intention of hurting anyone. He's just having fun with a fun program."

Bravo is scheduled to rerun the episode at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday.