Link to Michael and the Ethiopian d*cks

Michael Sayfou played Ash, one of Pontius' skateboarding friends, on two episodes of The Righteous Gemstones. I don't think he had any lines, but Gideon Gemstone called him by name and hugged him, and he was standing directly behind Gideon's brother Abraham at the opening of the new Christian skate park. That was enough for me to write an Ash-Abraham romance, "My Dad Can't Know That I'm Gay"

According to his IMDB page, Michael is straight, but I'm not so sure. He's wearing a lot of jewelry for a straight guy. Maybe he closeted the listing because:

He is of mixed race, with one side of his family from Ethiopia.

Wow, Ethiopia! The ancient city of Axum!

The rock churches of Lalibella!

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, one of the oldest in Christianity!

The Amharic language! The second most widely spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, with its own distinctive alphabet.

Those dinners where you tear off a chunky of spongy injera bread and use it to scoop up the various dishes.

And the men! In West Hollywood, I met an Ethiopian guy from the Tigrinya ethnic minority group. One of the biggest ever.

But Ethiopia is extremely homophobic. I can understand why Michael, immersed the Ethiopian immigrant subculture, might want to put "straight" on his IMDB profile, where everybody from his priest to his Uncle Orono can read it.

Michael was born in New Jersey in 2002, but went to high school in Mint Hill, a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was on the swim team.

More after the break.

Then came the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he was a theater major. He performed in seven plays, which is quite a lot. Most theater majors are lucky to be cast in one play a year:

Tracks: People find themselves in an afterlife subway station.

The Shape of the Grave: A lot of people die during the Troubles in Ireland.

Stage Door: A back stage musical, thank God. Hopefully Michael will move on from gloom masquerading as entertainment.

Our Town. I spoke too soon. As everyone knows, this horrible play is an early example of the Dead Wife.

A Christmas Carol. Michael played Scrooge

Rumors: A Neil Simon farce about a guy who keeps failing at shooting himself.

The Importance of Being Earnest. Finally, a comedy! And with a gay connection!

He graduated in 2024, and moved to Atlanta, where he began auditioning for movies and tv shows. He has appeared in the two 2025 episoces of The Righteous Gemstones, plus:

The short In Due Time (2025), which seems to be a western. It was written and directed by Atlanta-based filmmaker Graeme Wolverton, who posts on Threads that he's gay. More gay evidence for Michael.

Ex Games (2025), written and directed by Greenville, North Carolina filmmaker Jackson Reid Williams. A guy (Michael) breaks into his ex-wife's house with a gun, and the two "play a game of cat-and-mouse." Not gay evidence.

More straight evidence:

He brought a girl to his high school prom.

More gay evidence:

One of his Instagram friends call him "babygirl."

Another says "you and Gavin are so adorable."