Bob Paris

In 2012, Paris explained on his website that he never wanted to be a "lifestyle bodybuilder." Paris enjoyed the discipline and focus bodybuilding engendered; he also simply just excelled at the sport. To Paris, Bodybuilding allowed him to be artistic and a jock all at once, and also bodybuilding allowed him to exert his physical presence to the world in a way that demonstrated that he was a man. Today Paris is still active in fitness but not as serious as he once was. Paris believes exercise is part of having a more fulfilling life. Paris saw himself more as a writer over anything else. However, Paris believes bodybuilding saved his life and structured him to be the man he is today.

In 2009, he performed in a recurring role on the first season of the ABC Television series, Defying Gravity.

In 2006, Flex Magazine ranked Bob Paris the most aesthetic athlete in the history of bodybuilding. Renowned for both his aesthetics and artistic approach toward the sport, he was also a dedicated advocate for the rights of athletes and an outspoken voice in the push for drug testing at the professional level. He retired from bodybuilding in 1991.

On October 10, 1998, he made his New York stage debut, starring at Carnegie Hall opposite Bea Arthur, Sandy Duncan, Michael Jeter, Philip Bosco, Alice Ripley and Tyne Daly in the Broadway musical, Jubilee as the character Mowgli.

Today, Paris no longer body-builds, although he lives a more basic natural and spiritual lifestyle and often describes this through his writings on Instagram and other social medial outlets. Paris lives with his spouse, Brian LeFurgey, on an island near Vancouver, British Columbia. Paris holds dual American and Canadian citizenship. Together since 1996, Bob and Brian were legally married in British Columbia after the province equalized the marriage laws in 2003.

In the July 1989 issue of Ironman, Paris came out in the media as a gay man. He was the world's first male professional athlete, in any sport, to come out in the media while still an active competitor in his sport.

In addition to his writing career, Bob Paris remains a civil rights advocate and public speaker. He is also a model and a classically trained theater actor. Since rising to fame in the early 1980s, Bob Paris has appeared on the covers of scores of magazines worldwide.

Bob Paris (born Robert Clark Paris on December 14, 1959) is a Canadian-American writer, actor, public speaker, civil rights activist, and former professional bodybuilder. Paris was the 1983 NPC American National and IFBB World Bodybuilding Champion.