Chris Gallant wants to flip a Long Island House seat. Years before that, he was selling collars.
The New York Post first reported on the BDSM modeling pictures depicting Gallant, 37, is shown in collars, harnesses, straps, neoprene and other product shots.
Those listings are no longer on the store’s website. Copies remain in web archives from roughly 2011 through 2020. The Post said it identified Gallant with facial recognition and physical details, including a mark near his left temple. One archived item was a posture collar priced at $89.95.
Separate, more explicit images later showed up on adult sites that had no tie to the store. The paper also ran older 2007 photos from Fire Island.
Gallant’s side is not contesting the identification.
Lawyer Sara Azari told the publication the pictures are genuine. She described a private, consensual session with a partner he was with for four years, set up with a shop owner he already knew. The arrangement, she said, allowed only selected product photos. It did not give outsiders the right to republish them.
Azari said Gallant asked the company to pull the images once he began thinking about running for office, and the company did. Use on unrelated adult sites, she said, was never approved.
“These photographs have no bearing on Chris’s record, qualifications, judgment, or ability to serve,” she said.
Gallant followed up Monday in a text to supporters: “Yeah, that’s me.” He said he is not ashamed and has “always been unapologetically me.”
His public résumé is long: National Guard service since about 2006, Black Hawk pilot, volunteer firefighter, former FAA controller, and union representative. He joined the military around age 17 after Sept. 11. The photo years overlap that Guard service.
In June he beat Lukas Ventouras in the Democratic primary, about 63 percent to 37, after Ventouras’s campaign imploded over liked antisemitic posts.
LaLota, a Navy veteran, has held the seat since 2022, succeeding Lee Zeldin, now the EPA administrator. Cook lists the district as Solid Republican. The photo story did not move that rating.
