Master Teacher Natureboy, supplementary information.
/During my four part series covering Kayla 'Sunray' Reid's unusual story, my goal was to expand on the traditional media's coverage and provide a new perspective from which to view this story.
The starting point for my coverage was interviews I conducted with this stories two main players, Sunray (formerly Kayla Reid) and Natureboy, the controversial spiritual leader Sunray fled Canada to follow.
In 'The Rise of Natureboy' I used excerpts of my talk with Naturboy to provide a condensed telling of his life as Eligio Bishop, prior to what he has referred to as his spiritual awakening. I felt this was a valid topic to cover as during the media's coverage of Sunray's story many references were made to Natureboy's criminal background and his former life as a male model and erotic performer. I simple wanted to let Natureboy tell the story in his own words.
After the release of this episode, I've heard from several listeners who suspected he was being dishonest about his background and some who felt the details of his story couldn't be true. Although I didn't investigate or research his history to the extent I may my other topics, I did confirm some details of his story prior to publishing the episode.
In this blog post, I wanted to share the information I found that convinced me he was being honest.
Criminal Activity
During my interview with Natureboy, he discussed spending time in prison between the ages 16 and 20. Although I didn't find details specific to that I did find the below mugshots and details of charges relating to theft, and driving without a license.
2009 02 Mugshot
2012 04 mugshot
Modeling / Erotic Entertainment
Although I didn't specifically find his modeling work associated with any commercial application, a simple google search using his name will find many modeling portfolio type shots. As far as erotic entertainment, I will simply take his word for it to avoid needing to explain my web search history to my parents. Below, I've posted a screenshot of Natureboy's profile on the modeling site Model Mayhem
Natureboy's Model Mayhem Profile
Bishop's HD Cuts
During 'The Rise of Natureboy', I was very impressed by his rise in the barbering/saloon industry. To me, this made it obvious he was intelligent, entrepreneurial, and very driven. I've phoned many references to BishopsHDcuts across the net. A twitter profile, many reviews, and of course some photos. Below I've added a photo of the exterior (advertising the $7 Thursdays he mentioned) and the chess table he mentioned installing to offer anyone who beat him a free haircut.
Travelling in his RV
When I spoke to Natureboy, he described his time travelling by RV with his family through Florida as being a turning point in his interest in nature and a natural life. With very little effort I located a yelp review he left for a RV business he used for servicing in Florida.
NatureboyTV
When I asked Natureboy how his online video posts got started, he told me a story about selling his home and moving into a modest apartment. Within the apartment, he had very minimal contents and furniture in favor of setting up a sort of make shift studio. By reviewing his early posts on Youtube I found several of his videos were filmed in the apartment just as he described.