WASHINGTON — Conservative education activist and Project 2025 contributor Corey DeAngelis gave an interview to the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) on Tuesday, confirming that he performed in gay porn videos a decade ago under the name Seth Rose.
“There are images and videos circulating of me from my college days about a decade ago that I’m not proud of,” DeAngelis told CBN. “They’re embarrassing.”
DeAngelis said his appearance in the videos — which were discovered and initially disseminated by opposing right-wing factions in the Texas school vouchers debate — does not reflect hypocrisy on his part, but justifies why he is so committed to his current anti-porn stance.
“I was able to be lured in to make bad decisions as a young adult in college,” he told the religious broadcaster. “Just imagine how much worse it could be for younger people.
“I’ve been consistent,” he added. “I’ve changed my life. People change over time.”
As XBIZ reported last week, until his outing as a former sex worker, DeAngelis was a rising figure in right-wing politics and a culture warrior embraced by the Heritage Foundation — the organization leading the Project 2025 initiative — and similar outfits. He is listed as one of the contributors to Project 2025 in the controversial 900-page handbook “Mandate for Leadership” issued by the Heritage Foundation-led initiative, which includes an explicit call to criminalize the production and distribution of pornography.
DeAngelis is also a prominent contributor to Heritage Foundation publications, and has been actively championed by the foundation head and current leader and principal apologist for Project 2025, Kevin Roberts.
Last month, when news of his gay porn past began circulating, DeAngelis posted on X, “Just like everyone else, I have made mistakes throughout my life, learned from those mistakes, used that as an opportunity to grow and tried to channel that experience into something positive. I was a victim of poor decisions and poor influences. I have turned that experience into the fuel that fires me to save young people from being put in the same position I was put in and to help parents protect their children.”
DeAngelis’ main employer, the Betsy DeVos-backed anti-public-education organization American Federation for Children, fired him as news and images of his past as adult performer Seth Rose spread.
According to the IAFD entry for Seth Rose, DeAngelis performed in at least two scenes for adult website Gay Hoopla, “Hot Otter: Seth Rose” and “Jerk-Off Race,” both released in 2014. Content featuring DeAngelis was repackaged as late as 2023, in the anthology title “Super Star Cumpilation: How Many Strokes Til You Cum.”
According to DeAngelis, conservatives have been “overwhelmingly supportive” after the revelation of his past as a sex worker. He said he plans to continue his anti-public-school and anti-porn activities.
“I do not consent to this smear campaign mudslinging,” DeAngelis declared. “It is something dug up from my past — something, again, I’m not proud of, and something that fuels my fire to keep this material away from children.”