Matthew Rush, 2000s Falcon Sensation, Has Been on a Twisty Mystical Journey
The beefy porn star is actually Greg Grove, 52, who says that clairvoyant episodes have led him to his current life in Palm Springs, where he's launching a podcast about gay men's spiritual paths.
Hey Caftaners! Hope you had a good weekend. Well, I told you last week I’d have more pornstar interviews and, thanks to my fairy pornfather Tom Chase, who always gives me the hookup to his longtime porn buddies, I do!
Who can forget Matthew Rush, that big biracial hunk that succeeded Tom in the early 2000s as Falcon Studios’ Lifetime Exclusive star in such early-aughts classics as Hooked, Bounce, Good as Gold and the Deep South, Drenched and Velvet Mafia series?
Well, it turns out that our dom porn god was also a deeply sensitive young man from rural Pennsylvania named Greg Grove with a traumatic, fractured childhood that all the Falcon porn glamour in the world couldn’t paper over. In this nearly three-hour phone chat on May 13, Greg, who now lives in Palm Springs and is as gentle and vulnerable as “Matthew Rush” was deliciously domineering, cried frequently as he told me—often haltingly, as though he were still trying to make sense of it all—of his twisty-turny journey throughout several U.S. cities until he became a Falcon favorite. But there was much pain in store after the Falcon years—everything from broken relationships and drug problems to mystical moments culminating in a near-death experience. Then there was his move a few years ago to Palm Springs to be with, then break from, fellow porn legend Colton Ford, who died last year of an apparent MDMA overdose while hiking in the hot sun, only one month after I interviewed him for Caftan.
Again, I have to thank Tom Chase for connecting me to Greg as well as several other porn veterans. It’s touching to me how Tom stays in touch with so many of them and seems to care about their emotional and spiritual wellness; Greg, now 52, spoke to me often of how much Tom’s guidance through his dark years meant to him.
So settle in for this very twisty (and sometimes a bit twisted) chat. And follow Greg’s Instagram and Facebook accounts so you know when he soon launches a podcast he’s starting with two Palm Springs friends about gay men’s spiritual growth as we age.
And as always, if you like these Caftan interviews, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5 a month so you get the whole interview every time—and also help me to continue doing this labor of love.
If you already are a paid subscriber (and that includes the several who’ve become so in the past few weeks)…thank you! As this passion project of mine slowly but surely gains revenue, it allows me to devote ever more time to it.
Meanwhile, here is the sensitive Greg Grove, who had to go through A LOT (and see a lot of ghosts!) to find out who the heart and soul hiding behind Matthew Rush really was. And trigger warning: At some point, this conversation WILL involve a tampon string…and Tarzan. Not to mention the monkey from B.J. and the Bear. You’ll see.
Hi, Greg! Thanks for talking today. I’m hearing a lot of squawking on the phone. Is that Rooster?
Yes. He’s young, four years old, and if he doesn’t get attention, he’s very loud.
Does he say things?
He’s learning. He mumbles. If I make kissing sounds, he’ll make them back. [kissing sound] See? That was him. He’s on my shoulder right now. When I first got him, I knew nothing about birds. He was supposed to be a snake. My friend had a yellow banana python. I hate snakes, but every time I went over to my friend’s house, I had to hold it and be with it.
You had to?
I wanted to. I loved it. I realized that I had reptile dysfunction, because when the snake died, I was miserable for three days. So I went to get one, but it’s a lot of work, including feeding them mice. So I walked into the pet store in North Carolina, before I moved out here to be with Glenn [Colton Ford], and I got Rooster. When my relationship ended with Colton, I was already here and I had to start from Ground Zero in a place where I didn’t know anyone except for him.
When did you move to Palm Springs?
The day before Thanksgiving in 2024, to be with him.
I interviewed him only a few weeks before he died. I’m so sorry, Greg.
Um—there’s nothing to be sorry about because I knew he was going to die. I told him he was going to die. This is where it gets really deep and, um—I am not like everybody else. I see things that other people do not see. I’m a highly sensitive empath. I never understood what that was, or why as a kid I would feel the way that I did. Or why, as a kid, I would see spirits at night, which scared me because I had nobody to talk to about it. I was seeing dead people, so I’d put the covers over my head, thinking that if I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me. So I suppressed that gift.
So you’re saying you foresaw Colton dying?
Yes, I did.
Are you OK talking about that?
Yeah, I’m fine. I knew him way back when he and Blake Harper first got into porn.
Right, around 2000 or so. That’s when you started too, right?
Yeah. They came shortly after. When I first stepped onto the scene, I had a crush on Colton. He was with Blake. I didn’t necessarily find Blake attractive. He was handsome but he didn’t do anything physically for me like Colton did. I didn’t know if it was because I knew that Blake did drag. But he wasn’t my type. But I always fantasized about having Colton as a partner. The three of us did Toronto Pride once. When I was in their presence, the energy I realize now that [Blake] was giving off, because he’s a nurse, a nurturer caregiver—I felt his energy but I was lusting over Colton. I have deep daddy issues and he was the daddy type I felt attracted to. When I was in their presence, I could be Greg—myself. No act, no performing. They made me feel comfortable that way.
What was the dynamic like between the two of them?
They seemed to be the perfect couple.
That’s why I was shocked when they broke up. I know why now. I think Peter [Blake’s real name] was the one who’d had enough of being in the shadow of Colton Ford and having to live that life with no privacy. When you do porn, no matter what you do, all eyes are on you. That was a hard lesson for me to learn. You can only take so much, then you reach a breaking point and want to be left alone. I didn’t have the celebrity status like the big stars, but I can understand why—
In the 2000s, you did. You were huge. I wasn’t even following porn that closely in the 2000s, but I knew about you.
I didn’t see myself like that, because I’m Greg. I don’t see what everyone else sees. I’m still this skinny, geeky kid who built his body up.
I still don’t know what to do with my arms when I sleep. I’m a nerd. I don’t know how I wasn’t raised by the state growing up. I’m clumsy. But I can only be who I am. I can’t be what everybody wants me to be.
Already, talking to you now, I see the disconnect between the big-dicked muscle stud Matthew Rush and the sweet and vulnerable person that Greg is. Is that the disconnect you’re talking about?
Yeah. I started lifting weights in 1990, the summer before my senior year of high school in Pennsylvania. I grew up with two brothers who were white, 14 and 16 years old than me.
When you say white, you mean totally white, as opposed to biracial like you?
Yeah. I was the result of my mom sleeping with someone besides her husband. Growing up, I knew that the man who raised me was not my biological father, but he was the only dad I had.
Was he a good dad?
Oh, yes. I grew up with a lot of love despite not knowing who or what I was back then. I knew I was different in many ways. I knew I was gay from a young age. And that my dad was not my biological father, because I didn’t look like the rest of my family. I hated getting my picture taken with the rest of my family because I didn’t fit in. But my white dad raised me with a lot of love.
He knew that you were not fathered by him and yet he treated you like his biological son? That’s beautiful.
Oh, yeah. I put the man on a pedestal. As a kid, I questioned a lot. Why, why, why, why, why? I had to know the answer to everything. Sometimes I just want to take out my brain. It doesn’t shut off.
To get back to Colton for a second: Are you saying that when you were with him in Palm Springs, you had foreshadowing of his passing?
Yeah.
Thoughts that popped into your head or a vision or …?
When we reconnected, I was still living in North Carolina and he had this idea of doing a documentary. He’d seen that documentary on supermodels…
…and what it was like to age in that industry. He wanted to do the same thing, but with porn stars. And I was part of that. The people he chose to be in this project were people that I knew, like Tom Chase, who’s like a brother to me.
He knows the journey and the ego death and everything. He’s the one who picked me to be Falcon’s next Lifetime Exclusive after him.
We’ll definitely get to that. So, again, how did you foresee Colton’s death?
We’d gotten into an argument and I wanted him to leave me alone, but he wouldn’t. I didn’t want to hurt him physically or use my words. So I walked away and he followed me. I went into the kitchen and I had my back to him and I could see his reflection in the sliding glass doors. I said, “Please, I want to be left alone.” Then he accused me of being on drugs, but I wasn’t. I was alone at Christmastime for the first time ever in my life, when we were living in the same house after breaking up. He’d gone to see his family.
So—you saw his death face in the glass doors?
He asked if I wanted a Xanax, and I said no. He said, “I’ll take one with you.” That’s when it clicked. I said, “Why would you? You’re calm.” But in the reflection, I couldn’t see anything behind him but blackness. This dark, inky black. [dog starts barking] Hold on, that’s my dog.
Is that Moo-shoo?
Yeah. Give me a second. The plumber is here and making him bark. [he comes back in a sec]
So inky black?
Yeah. I couldn’t see past that. I’ve experienced that before with people. Knowing what that indicates—it’s a manifestation of something that, if they don’t let go of certain things in their life, it’s a build-up of negative energy. And once that build-up reaches its peak, it can kill you.
So you think he was suicidal?
No. No. There was no suicide note. If someone’s going to commit suicide, you’re not going to know about it.
When I interviewed him, he was lovely. But I sensed this underlying sadness. He never came out and said it. I sensed it.
That’s cause you’re an empath like me. I knew the things he needed to let go of. But even when I moved out here for him, I knew that the relationship wasn’t going to work out. ’Cause when he sent me his picture, I knew that I wasn’t attracted to him like I had been. But I needed to get out of North Carolina and to Palm Springs, and he was my best hope.
Why weren’t you attracted to him anymore?
Because I had done the inner work. I had tried and failed to commit suicide. I took the drugs to kill myself but a little voice in my head said, “Get to the hospital—you fucked up.”
We’ll definitely get to that. But about Colton—you said you looked at a picture of him and were no longer attracted. Because you could sense from the picture that he hadn’t done the spiritual work, or was it his physical attributes you were no longer attracted to?
Both. One was a lie. He sent me his picture and because, physically, I wasn’t attracted to him, um—
But why? Are you not attracted to older daddy silver fox type?