Gay Tony

edit
Character
Anthony Prince
	Gay Tony in Ballad of Gay Tony; Gay Tony in Ballad of Gay Tony
Appearances	[[Appearance::Grand Theft Auto IV; The Lost and Damned; The Ballad of Gay Tony]]
Full Name	Anthony Prince
Aliases	Gay Tony; Tone
Gender	Gender::Male
Date of Birth	[[Error: Invalid time.\|1958 (age 50, although he claims to be 45)]]
Place of Birth	Dukes, Liberty City
Age Now
Nationality	American
Home	Liberty City
Main Affiliations	Luis Fernando Lopez; Ancelotti Family; Evan Moss; Dessie; Joni; Troy; Yusuf Amir; Rocco Pelosi; Cloe Parker; Tom Rivas
Vehicles	A black Schafter
Businesses	Nightclub owner
	ADVERTISEMENT

Anthony Prince, otherwise known as Gay Tony, is a nightclub entrepreneur in the GTA IV era. Tony plays a major role in the DLC pack The Ballad of Gay Tony, as its name suggests. In the first trailer for the game, he tells Luis that he is about to lose all he owns, since he owed money to Rocco Pelosi, Uncle Vince, and Mori Kibbutz.

Description

Tony has run various nightclubs in Liberty City for the past twenty-five years,^[1] he currently owns the clubs Maisonette 9 and Hercules in Lower Algonquin and additionally has interests in Bahama Mamas in Purgatory; he was also the proprietor of clubs of yesteryear such as Peacock, Platonic Fury and Cox.^[1] He is also connected with the Ancelotti Family due to his close friendship with Gracie Ancelotti. As his nickname suggests, Tony is openly homosexual. Tony has in the past come under fire for lax safety standards and age-checking in his clubs, and some of his clubs have been shut down due to violations of 8 city ordinances (in particular drug use on the premises).^[2] Tony has been arrested several times, most notably for tax evasion in 1985, for which he spent 3 months in jail.^[1] He was also convicted for possession of cocaine in 1996, and public lewdness in 1999. Tony also has problems with drugs, particularly cocaine and painkillers, (supplied to him by his boyfriend Evan Moss) and he has been to rehab 6 times.^[1]

According to www.maisonette9.com:

Tony Prince, the legendary "Gay Tony", grew up in Dukes, as a young boy he wandered to the Humboldt River and dreamed of living on the other side so he would no longer be considered bridge and tunnel and as soon as he went to college, his dream came true. Ignoring school, he spent the middle part of the 1980s working the cloakroom and then the door at the legendary Elephant, until that closed down following a fire. Tony's next venture was the classic rave venue PUDDLE, based famously in a converted mortuary. Unfortunately, the tax man decided Tony was having too much of a good a time and the club was closed and Tony narrowly avoided jail. Next he opened his first gay club, Thunder, which itself evolved into 2 Backed Beast. After this was shut down by the city, he returned to the gay scene with Hercules, which has now been open for ten years.
At the same time, he catered to the heterosexual crowd with the now legendary DEATH BY MACHINES. After DEATH BY MACHINES burned down, Tony was breifly banned from opening any new venues, before he opened Maisonette 9 in 2003. As Tony says, in his inimicable style, "I do it for the love, that and the easy money, access to drugs and ability to suck up to famous people"

The Ballad of Gay Tony

Dominican gangster Luis Fernando Lopez is recruited by Tony as a body guard and bouncer at his clubs. Due to Tony owning money to people like Rocco Pelosi and Mori Kibbutz, Luis must work for them because they think that they "own" Tony and therefore Luis too. At one point, Tony, Luis and Evan Moss, Tony's boyfriend at the time, go to a deal with a cook at the Platypus in which Tony buys some diamonds. However, the diamonds got robbed of them by Johnny Klebitz and other members of The Lost, resulting in the death of Evan. Later, Luis manages to get a hold of them again after he takes them from a deal between Johnny, Niko Bellic and Isaac Roth. In the meantime, Luis is also introduced to Rodislav Bulgarin, who he starts to work for, and who later claims that the diamonds are actually his.
Some time after that, Niko kidnaps Tony's friend Gracie Ancelotti and makes a deal with Tony to trade her for the diamonds. The deal took place and Niko and his accomplice Patrick McReary were allowed to pick up the diamonds, though Bulgarin's men attacked them and one of them threw the diamonds onto a garbage truck. Bulgarin also attacked Luis and Tony, who managed to defend Maisonette 9 from the incoming Russians. Luis then went on the offensive and killed Bulgarin's right hand, Timur, and later killed Bulgarin too, who blew up his own private jet with a grenade. Tony and Luis were free men again after that.

Trivia

Tony is depicted to be wearing a pair of purple and black designer sunglasses. However, its design varies slightly between GTA IV and The Ballad of Gay Tony, with minor differences in details.
In his only appearance in The Lost and Damned, "Diamonds in the Rough", Tony is not seen wearing the sunglasses, the only instance in the series when he doesn't don any eyewear.
In The Ballad of Gay Tony, it is mentioned several times that Tony is originally from Dukes, though he is not proud of it and tries to forget about it. His LCPD record states that he is from the American Midwest. It's likely that Tony was born in the Midwest and was raised in Dukes.
Tony's relationship with Luis is strained throughout the gameplay. Luis and Tony constantly argue because of Tony's massive debt to "half of the city" and his drug issues. The reason Luis does not leave Tony to deal with his problems by himself is that Luis thinks of Tony as father he never had (his actual father abandoned Luis when he was a kid). Tony himself feels the same way, that Luis is the closest thing he has had to a son.
After The Ballad of Gay Tony is complete, Tony makes no further appearances. He cannot be called (as his phone number is taken out of Luis's phonebook) or e-mailed and he never appears at either of his clubs. The reason why is unknown, as it is stated that he changed his mind about moving away where nobody would find him.
According to Luis Lopez, Tony was first dubbed as "Gay Tony" in 1985.