Michael Caputo is an Italian American author and the only son of the late legendary comedian and actor Pat Cooper. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and has officially retired. He spends most of his spare time writing and promoting his work. He also continues to advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, civil rights, and civil liberties for all men and women.
His love for writing began in grammar school, and he remembers spending hours on the typewriter doing his favorite homework assignments: writing book reports, biographies about famous people, and prose about current events. As a young man, he studied acting, voice, and dance. He also wrote and produced a short video interview, A Mother's Story, featuring his paternal grandmother.
All his questions centered around her ongoing relationship, or lack thereof, with her famous son, Pat Cooper. Ultimately, that candid interview recorded in 1986 would be the foundation of his first memoir, published in 2009. At the time, he dreamed of bringing that video about his paternal grandmother, Louise Caputo, to national television for the world to see. Little did he know that his dream would come true easier than ever imagined with the invention of the Internet and all the social media platforms where over a hundred thousand people have already viewed A Mother's Story on YouTube.
Michael Caputo unexpectedly got to tell his family’s whole story on the Howard Stern Radio Show three years after making that video. He also encouraged his biological sister and paternal grandmother to call in, and Stern named that show the Family Feud. It made radio ratings history in 1989 and was the first of its kind, marking the beginning of reality entertainment.
During that time, Caputo had another opportunity to bring his personal story to the airwaves. He was a guest on one of Geraldo’s Shows (Can Fatherhood Be Forced?), along with his father, who was a call-in guest. That was another day that made history for Caputo. Collectively, all this media attention over the years concerning his estranged relationship with his father gave Caputo all the material he would need to write his first memoir.
Throughout his life, Michael Caputo has had multiple careers which he has loved. One of his most memorable jobs was working as a promotions producer for the Geraldo Rivera Show and the Joan Rivers Show at CBS in New York City. After that, he changed course and became a worldwide known and highly requested licensed massage therapist and esthetician at a 5-star hotel/spa on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. He was written up in three major magazines: Allure Magazine, Gotham Magazine, and Skin Inc. Allure Magazine mentioned Caputo twice (two years in a row) as one of the country’s best. After his sixteen-year tenure at the famous Peninsula Hotel, he started his own LLC for massage therapy and manscaping for men, which flourished over the next seven years.
In May of 2012, Michael Caputo became one of the most famous licensed massage therapists on the planet after giving the Daily News an exclusive interview about the ongoing sex scandals nationwide involving John Travolta and his widely known inappropriate behavior with a few of the male massage therapists at the Peninsula Hotel-Spa where Caputo once worked. Caputo unexpectedly ended up on the front page of the Daily News and was written up in People Magazine and the National Enquirer. For weeks, he was bombarded with phone calls from all the major media outlets begging him for an interview, even though he never massaged John Travolta.
Caputo’s first book, (Dear Pat Cooper: What Happened to My Father Pasquale Caputo?) was published in 2009. His book caused significant controversy within his father’s camp. Still, it was a major success, with over fifty positive reviews on Amazon.
Caputo’s second book, CHAMELEON: A Memoir, was published in 2021. This memoir shows another side of the author in which he vividly describes his harrowing journey coming out of the closet and living authentically, post-Stonewall, pre-HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the years after that. In that memoir, Caputo puts the spotlight on the Christian Right for using their Bible to discriminate and relentlessly trying to derail the progress of the LGBTQ+ community. In Chameleon: A Memoir, Caputo also explores the notorious down-low subculture and elaborates on his many clandestine experiences with men on the DL.
In 2024, Caputo published his third book, Never Forget What They’ve Done To Us: Counterfeit Christians 101. This work centers around religion and how that business has affected the author, the world, and humanity. The author is laser-focused on Christianity and Catholicism, mainly because that’s the faith he was born into. He is a staunch supporter of the separation of church and state. He also supports all First Amendment rights, including the freedom of religion. But make no mistake, the author is no fan of any religion. He strongly feels that God and religion are separate entities and that no human being should ever fuse the two, or any dictionary should ever declare them synonyms. He is honest and unapologetic about everything he writes in his book concerning people who identify as Christian or Catholic. He makes it clear in his preface and throughout his work that he does not mean all religious people are bigots and hypocrites but shows proof that most of them are. This book is a real eye-opener for all people, religious and non-religious, who have been misled and uninformed, especially in America.
Author’s Websites: MichaelCaputoAuthor.com & DearPatCooper.com
QUOTES BY THE AUTHOR TAKEN FROM CHAMELEON: A Memoir
“How did I end up down this rabbit hole of being obsessed with men on the DL (down-low)? Why did I prefer playing more in the straight arena with the closet cases (as they were called in my day) and the bisexual men over the gay ones?”
We didn’t identify in my day; you were either gay, bisexual, or straight. People will always label others or pigeonhole them without even knowing for sure who they really are. They presumably stereotype and judge just by your outward appearance.”
“It wasn't until the seventh grade that Sister Gloria would be my social studies teacher, and I began leaning more towards being an extrovert than the anxious introvert that I was. All the accolades go to her. She lit the flame under my ass that would be the catalyst for my advocacy. Her podium, located front and center of the classroom, became ground zero for me and where I found my voice.”
“Their taunting was my kryptonite. My peers hated me for no other reason than the fact that they thought I was gay. I was only thirteen and often wondered how they knew who I was before I did.”
“Evangelical Christian Anita Bryant (First Lady of Religious Bigotry), along with her minions, led a crusade against the LGBTQ community back in 1977 and said we were trying to recruit children and that ‘Homosexuals are human garbage.’ My first thoughts were, how unchristian and deplorable of her to even say something like that, not to mention, to make it her life’s mission promoting hate.”
“Are there any more Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. kind of Christians in this country today? Dr. King knew about his friend’s homosexuality and arrest. Being a religious man and a pastor, Dr. King could have cast judgment and shunned Bayard Rustin like so many other religious leaders did at the time. But he didn’t. That, to me, is the true meaning of being a Christian. He loved Bayard unconditionally and was unbiased towards his sexual orientation. Dr. King was not a counterfeit Christian and practiced what he preached—and that, along with remembering what Jesus had said, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ is the bottom line to Christianity and all faiths.”
“We are all God’s children! That is what I was taught in Catholic school. God doesn’t make mistakes—it’s as simple as that. Love is love—period! I don’t need anyone’s validation or approval; I define myself.”
“You will bake our cakes, you will provide us our due healthcare, you will do our joint tax returns, and yes, you will bless our unions, too. Otherwise, you cannot call yourselves Christians or even Americans, for that matter. Church and State separate forever!”
“The torch has been passed. But we must never forget the LGBT pioneers that have come before and how they fought in the streets for our lives. Never forget the Stonewall riots of 1969 nor the social stigma put upon us during the HIV/AIDS epidemic from its onset in the early 1980s. Remember how many died alone because nobody cared. Finally, keep in mind how we were all pathologized and labeled in the medical books until 1973.”
QUOTES TAKEN FROM THE GERALDO RIVERA SHOW – 1990
“My father’s whole act is based on his family. He portrays the image that he’s close to me, both mentally and emotionally. The truth about my father is that he’s never been there as a father nor has he represented any kind of role model to me in the past thirty years. Pat Cooper’s image is a lie that he sold to the American public by turning his back on his own flesh and blood. And that’s the true story about him.” - Michael Caputo
“And let me tell you something. I don’t have to be your father, you’re not that thrilling! You’re not that thrilling, and I don’t want to be your father!” - Pat Cooper