Out in the real world: not only does this season of MTV's The Real World give us out, proud Willie--he's also not the only gay houseguest.

A recurring scenario hi past seasons of MTV's The Real World involves the show's lone gay or lesbian east member fretting about when and how to come out to his or her housemates. We won't be getting such a display from the fabulously frank Willie. "Oh, honey, I didn't worry about it at all," chirps the 23-year-old Manhattan native, who is one of two gay men featured on the show's new Philadelphia-set season. (Karamo, a Houston-born African-American business school graduate, is the other.) "I mentioned it the first day to break the ice, but I'm sure everyone knew." And they were cool with it? "Oh, yeah," says Willie. "In the first episode I take the housemates out to a gay club. It's hilarious. They thought they'd be uncomfortable, and they ended up having the most amazing time."

Though Willie admits he and his cohorts indulge in their share of foul-mouthed "housemates gone wild" shenanigans--"I may get inebriated, but you'll never see me be a mess or, like, throw up" he reports--he's also well aware that his position comes with serious role-model potential. "I'm not here to say, 'I'm here, I'm queer, and I'm going to be the best gay man in the world,'" he says. "I feel that being proud and comfortable with who I am is enough."

While the show's basic premise has always been to give its sometimes surprisingly sheltered cast a dose of "the real world," Willie saw it as a rare opportunity to escape reality for a few months. A former child actor who appeared in commercials and on the kids' show Ghost Writer, Willie left home and became an emancipated minor at 15 after his very traditional Puerto Rican Catholic parents learned that he was gay. "The dynamic in my family immediately changed and I didn't feel safe, so it was just best that I leave," says the former retail clerk, who now works as a personal shopper. "I came here to regress and smoke too much and drink too much and enjoy people and take advantage of the fact that I'm not paying rent or worrying about my career or my family."

Willie's relationship with his now-separated parents "gets better every year," he says. His heart, though, seems to belong to his five siblings. "They're my total world," he gushes. "I only cried once on the show: It was when I was talking to my roommates about my little brothers--who are 12, 14, 16--and hoping that they're still going to love their big brother after I tell them I'm gay. I'm going to do it prior to the show airing, even though I know they already know."

In a twist that could spawn a whole other reality show, Willie also has an identical twin brother who happens to be ... straight? "I've never met another set [of gay-straight identical twins]," says Willie. "We're really tight now, but there was a strange dynamic between us in, like, junior high because people could tell I was gay and he's very much a man's man. We had the same face, but he was into sports and I liked to sing musical-theater songs in the shower."

Speaking of shower scenes, can we expect any intercast hookups on this season's Real World? "Yes," says the currently single Willie, "but I'm not going to tell you who." Any good knock-down, drag-out fistfights? "Honey, please," he says, laughing. "I'm too cute to fight."

Hensley is the author of Screening Party (Alyson).