Biting, berating, racist language: Basabe has faced many claims of bad behavior

Fabian Basabe had a bone to pick. At an event at the Standard Spa in Miami Beach, he had been seated next to people unfamiliar to him — prompting the former reality TV star and socialite who would later become a Republican state representative to send a scathing email to hotel employees.

“Please don’t ever sit me next to people I don’t know again!” Basabe said in the email, which was reviewed by the Miami Herald. “You must understand I do not expect to entertain randoms! ... I will keep this to myself right now but do not disrespect me again!”

In response, one of the employees reminded Basabe of what he says took place that night: Basabe bit him, he claimed, saying he had a “massive bloody welt and bruise” on his shoulder.

“It was not the first time I got wasted,” Basabe wrote back. “But it was the first time you didn’t treat me as a friend.”

The incident at the Standard, which took place in 2016, is emblematic of alleged bad behavior by Basabe spanning nearly two decades — a history that has come under fresh scrutiny as the first-year lawmaker faces a lawsuit by two staffers who claim he sexually harassed them. Earlier this year, one of the staffers said Basabe slapped him in the face at an event, prompting a Florida House investigation that was “inconclusive.”

Before taking office last year, Basabe was accused of biting a hotel worker on at least one other occasion, according to a police report obtained by the Herald. He has allegedly berated staffers at multiple Miami Beach venues, including once after he tried to dock a boat outside the Standard at 3 a.m., internal hotel emails show.

Basabe, 45, has also been publicly accused of using racist language twice. And records show he has received more than two dozen traffic citations in Miami-Dade County and been arrested at least once on charges of driving under the influence, a 2009 case in which he pleaded no contest and paid a fine.

Basabe and his attorney did not directly respond to detailed questions about the incidents and allegations discussed in this story.

In a statement, Basabe said he is focused on “bringing dollars home to the district and finding new ways to improve the quality of our surroundings.”

“While recollections of my past will vary, I am thankful for the privilege I have earned to serve in the State Legislature,” he said. “I appreciate I am a major target for the opposition, but only hope people find some level of comfort in disparaging my past.”

‘What happened this time?’

After years as a headline-making “It Boy” in New York’s nightlife scene in the early 2000s, Basabe returned to South Florida — where he had spent most of his youth — as a lower-profile celebrity.

But he remained a regular at high-end parties and events in Miami Beach, causing trouble along the way.

In 2016, Basabe was charged with disorderly conduct for climbing on the roof of a car and yelling at pedestrians in South Beach. He told police he wanted to “make a fabulous entrance to Club Twist,” according to an incident report.

Two employees for the Faena, a five-star, oceanfront hotel, told the Herald Basabe has been temporarily banned from the hotel on multiple occasions.

According to a Miami Beach police report, a Faena waitress said Basabe bit her arm while she was serving him drinks in April 2017. Basabe “became verbally demanding and condescending” and was “demanding his black Amex card and acting erratic,” the report states. At some point, police said, Basabe bit the waitress “on her left arm, bicep area.”

When police arrived, they said they saw no physical evidence of a bite and the waitress didn’t want to press charges. They issued Basabe a trespass warning.

A police officer “made it extremely clear that he is no longer allowed to come back to the Faena and if he does he will go to jail,” the incident report states. “He said he will not be returning.”

Basabe had other run-ins with hotel staffers.

In 2018, a worker at the Standard confronted him after he docked a boat outside the hotel at 3 a.m. in violation of hotel policy for non-guests, according to an internal hotel email reviewed by the Herald. Basabe said he had an agreement to dock his boat there and began “insulting” the worker when he was asked to remove it, according to the email, and a supervisor told the worker to call the police.

“There was no cooperation from [Basabe] at all even with the police present,” the supervisor wrote to a higher-up. “This is unacceptable behavior towards my staff.”

The matter was resolved after Basabe agreed to sign a liability waiver and staff confirmed Basabe’s cousin was staying at the hotel, according to the report.

Claims of racist language

The incidents at the Standard and Faena hotels weren’t publicly reported at the time. But Basabe burst back into the spotlight in December 2019, when Page Six reported he called publicist Tayo Otiti the n-word at an Art Basel party at the Bass Museum.

Following a dispute about entry to the event, Basabe started “screaming at the top of his lungs” as he was leaving, Otiti told Page Six, saying he called her the n-word and other profanities.

Basabe denied using the n-word, claiming he only told Otiti, “Nice try, peasant.” Afterward, a spokesperson for the Bass said Basabe was no longer welcome at the museum.

As part of his defense, Basabe pointed to his friendship with actor Cuba Gooding, Jr., who has been pictured with Basabe at numerous events in South Florida.

It wasn’t the first time Basabe had been accused of using racist language. In 2005, he was heard calling a group of Black bouncers “Negroes” after he was kicked out of a Hamptons nightclub, according to reports in the New York Daily News and New York Post.

Basabe admitted using the term and apologized the next day, telling the Daily News he was “trying to imagine the most disrespectful word to blatantly offend one person,” and that he “under no circumstances [has] ever used that word or do I believe in that word.”

He added that, while filming a reality TV show that aired that year, “Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive,” he had “been with cowboys and they use that word, like, every day.”

From ‘male Paris Hilton’ to Florida politician

Basabe was born in New York City to an Ecuadorian father and an American mother, moving to Ecuador in 1984 when he was 6 years old before settling in South Florida in 1987.

Basabe’s father, also named Fabian, made money in Ecuador and the United States through “telecom, restaurants and real estate,” The Washington Post reported in 2005. He owned the Boulevard Hotel in South Beach and two now-closed restaurants, Bravo and I Paparazzi.

Basabe, meanwhile, was kicked out of several South Florida prep schools, according to the Miami New Times, before graduating from Cheshire Academy in Connecticut. He was later dismissed from Pepperdine University in Malibu during his senior year, telling The Washington Post he got caught submitting a paper he had purchased online.

He arrived in New York soon afterward, in 2000, and briefly worked for Morgan Stanley. But he quit after six months, telling The Washington Post: “The conversations were really boring; the lunch places that they wanted to go were just too boring.”

Bankrolled by his father, Basabe became a fixture in New York nightlife — a charismatic, good-looking party boy with a tendency to cause chaos.

In 2003, he appeared in a segment of “Young, Rich and Famous” on the E! Network. He made frequent tabloid headlines, most notably when he was photographed dancing with the then-president’s daughter, Barbara Bush, in 2004.

In 2005, he appeared on “Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive,” a reality show on E! that featured Basabe, Kourtney Kardashian and other children of wealthy parents doing hard labor on a Colorado cattle ranch.

That year, Basabe married Martina Borgomanero, the heiress of the La Perla lingerie fortune.

The Washington Post described Basabe as the “highest-profile young socialite” in New York City and a “male version” of Paris Hilton. “Putting Basabe’s name on an invitation to a charity event or a club opening is a splendid way to create buzz,” the Post wrote.

There were negative headlines, too, including reports of an arrest for drunk driving in 2006. Also that year, Basabe filed a lawsuit seeking $2 million from a popular New York nightclub, Bungalow 8, claiming a doorman had hit him while blocking his entry.

Tabloid rumors about Basabe’s sexuality circulated at the time, but Basabe didn’t address them — similar to his approach since entering politics and pitching himself on his campaign website as a “devoted family man.” At a Florida LGBTQ Democratic Caucus conference in 2021, Basabe introduced himself as a “gay candidate” while running for Miami Beach City Commission.

Basabe and Borgomanero have a teenage son and list their primary address at a condo they own in Belle Isle, a Miami Beach neighborhood along the Venetian Causeway. He owns a total of seven properties in Miami and Miami Beach.

Basabe’s net worth is $4.3 million, he said on a recent financial disclosure form, despite having no sources of income beyond a salary of about $30,000 from the Florida House.

‘Let this episode stand as a warning’

Basabe has sought to put his party boy reputation behind him in recent years, re-branding himself as a reformed full-time dad “fed up with partisanship and politics as usual” during campaigns for Miami Beach City Commission in 2021 and the Florida House last year.

But controversy has continued to follow him.

In 2020, he faced a criminal charge after he grabbed a neighbor’s phone and threw it into the water during a dispute over COVID-related restrictions at his condo’s pool area, according to a police report. Basabe said the neighbor was trying to film his son.

He was later arrested by U.S. Marshals on a boat in South Carolina after he allegedly failed to address the charge in Florida. Basabe said he wasn’t fleeing and told the Miami New Times he “had no reason to believe a warrant for my arrest was issued.”

In 2021, Basabe sought to run for Miami Beach City Commission but was disqualified for failing to meet the city’s residency requirements.

And last year, Basabe sought to present himself as a social moderate as he ran as a Republican for House District 106, which covers a historically left-leaning area that includes Miami Beach and other coastal cities in Northeast Miami-Dade. He said he was pro-choice and pro-LGBTQ rights, winning support from some Democrats en route to a narrow victory.

But he faced backlash from constituents during his first legislative session as he voted in lock-step with Republicans on culture-war bills backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. In April, he was booed as he rode down Ocean Drive in the Miami Beach Pride Parade.

Now, Basabe faces a civil lawsuit in Leon County Circuit Court, complaints filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and a new investigation by the Florida House into the sexual harassment claims by two staffers.

A legislative aide and a former intern say Basabe made lewd sexual comments and advances toward them, slapped the aide’s butt without his consent, and groped and tried to kiss the intern in a car.

Basabe has denied those allegations and blasted one of his accusers — Nicolas Frevola, the legislative aide who also claims Basabe slapped him in the face at an event in January — saying in a statement last month that Frevola is “lazy, entitled, unscrupulous, self-involved, ungrateful, lying scum,” and “belongs to a special kind of hell.”

Frevola, 25, is accusing Basabe of defamation for the statement, saying in his lawsuit that it was “made in clear retaliation against a young public employee who ‘dared’ to make a complaint.”

“Let others learn,” Basabe’s statement concluded, “and let this episode stand as a warning for those who plot harm.”