(Photo courtesy of Unzipped via Steven Daigle)

It’s no secret at all. Steven Daigle — the gay rodeo star whose burst of fame came on the reality-TV show “Big Brother” in 2008 — is today one of the hottest stars in the gay male adult film industry.

A top star for king-of-gay-porn Chi Chi LaRue, Steven is also winner of the GayVN award for “the most rented title” of 2010, “Steven Daigle XXXposed.”

He makes his Washington premiere appearance live and nude tonight at Secrets, “so his many fans can see him, not just on video, but this time up close and very personal — it’s a real coup for Secrets,” says the club’s promoter Jon Royce.

“Without sounding cocky,” Daigle says, “the success of that first video, ‘Steven Daigle XXXposed,’ was because of me, because I brought a mainstream name to the film, because of being on ‘Big Brother.'”

There are other signs of his popularity too. Topco Sales even sells a dildo molded from his unit.

“He came into the molding session with a great attitude and ready to do anything we asked of him in order to get the best possible mold,” says Topco’s Miranda Lancaster.

“What I go through for my fans,” Daigle says. “I hope you enjoy it.”

The replica became rather famous in August when Daigle and his then boyfriend, fellow porn star Trent Locke, appeared live on a Manhunt video chat.

Locke and Daigle unfortunately came to blows recently, and definitely not in a good way. It happened Oct. 18 at the Abbey, the West Hollywood gay bar where Steven gathered with friends for a viewing party to watch his appearance on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” the hit reality show now in its third season on the Bravo cable channel.

According to TMZ, Locke (who was named by his porn name, Ryan Purdy) approached Steven and started a fight, which turned ugly and bloody. It was Daigle, however, not Locke, who was arrested. Held by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department overnight on $20,000 bail, he was charged with one count of misdemeanor battery. Conviction means up to one year behind bars.

But there may be more to the story. Daigle’s mug shot, which TMZ posted, shows he clearly took a beating. Nevertheless TMZ reported that Locke was rushed to the hospital.

Royce says “any domestic violence is unfortunate” and when he heard the news of Steven’s arrest, he “immediately crossed him off my list for bringing him to Secrets.” But then Royce watched the news and read interviews about what happened and changed his mind.

“I decided to let the case take its course and not make any judgments based on headlines,” he says.

Locke, meanwhile, voiced remorse, saying on his website, “I love Steven Daigle and am so upset and deeply embarrassed that things happened the way they did,” expressing “so much respect” still for Daigle.

“I feel lost, confused, and afraid,” he wrote.

This is the second time Locke has accused a boyfriend of domestic violence.

Royce says that in person “Steven is genuine, not a fake nice person, but real, who will mix and mingle with his fans in the crowd, sign autographs, take pictures, and have a really good time with everybody” at Secrets tonight (which also just happens to be Royce’s birthday party). Long-time adult industry impresario Royce — a D.C. native who returned here, and runs MightyMen.com, after years spent in Los Angeles — has booked porn stars on a monthly basis for Secrets’ shows since he brought in Falcon mega-star Matthew Rush in 2009.

Rush, a biracial bodybuilder and winner of the 2010 Grabby Award for Best Versatile Performer, appeared in his first post-Falcon work in a 2009 video and photo shoot produced by Royce, who has also brought in other porn stars to Secrets, and boasts he helped discover two of the club’s current dancers, Redmond Fox and Jessie Lee.

Secrets, Royce says, is a key venue on the porn industry circuit because it is only one of three U.S. clubs that can legally feature entirely unclad performers. Another is Atlanta and in the third city, Pittsburgh, he says that the law is being changed to ban nudity there.

“So Secrets is a really great place, because porn stars like Steven can be naked,” which Royce says is what it’s all about: “You see them naked in videos, so why would you want to see them with their pants on in a club?”

It was Daigle’s shirtless appearance on the CBS TV show “Big Brother” in its 10th summer season three nights a week in 2008 when he first caught the eye of Royce, who says the show is a big favorite for gay viewers, including LaRue.

Royce claims to have never missed an episode of the series, which has 13 people on a soundstage, isolated and filmed 24/7.

Daigle competed well but was voted off the show in its third episode. He returned for the season finale and at a wrap party he met LaRue, who almost immediately laid out an open invitation for Steven to begin appearing in gay porn videos.

In fact Steven’s mainstream appeal, partly due to his cowboy looks as a gay rodeo bull-riding champion, begins with his all-American-boy rearing in small-town Opelousas in south-central Louisiana.

Born in 1973, at age 8 he moved with his parents to the outskirts of Houston, where he lived at home for a time after high school working odd jobs including a stint in environmental clean-up work. At 21, he began to appear in rodeos “just as a hobby,” he says, “for fun on weekends.” He soon was riding bulls and appearing in rodeos in other cities.

Only at age 26 did he start his undergraduate study, earning a degree in agriculture and marketing at the city’s Sam Houston State University. Next he completed his master’s in applied geography at the University of North Texas in Denton, a college town near Dallas, after moving there and coming out at age 30. He soon discovered the world of gay rodeo with friends.

He owned a horse and was a natural in the saddle and at riding bulls bareback. Soon he was ranked No. 1 in bull riding and also won an international steer-riding competition. That’s when “Big Brother” producers asked the gay rodeo association to recommend someone to join the cast of 13 in the 2008 production. In the year that followed his appearance on the show he continued to work as a geographic information systems analyst for a large engineering firm with offices in Dallas. But LaRue’s offer to work in gay porn – and her motto, “save a horse, ride a cowboy” – was still in the back of his mind.

He knew that drag diva and porn promoter LaRue (AKA Larry David Paciotti), director of all-time gay-sex video best-sellers and the owner of her own production company Channel 1 Releasing, could make things happen. Inducted into the GayVN Hall of Fame, in 2008 she also opened her adult boutique, Chi Chi LaRue’s, on Santa Monica Boulevard in the heart of West Hollywood, where she sells everything from 2,000 video titles to sex toys and candles.

“We were friends,” Daigle says, “and she wasn’t bugging me, and at first it was just a joke, but then I thought my job might be ending, since the economy was so hard and lay-offs were impending, so I called and asked her ‘Are you serious about this?’ and she said yes.”

So they negotiated a deal and he shot three videos.

LaRue called “XXXposed,” “the high point in my directing. Steven took to being watched like a seasoned pro.”

In the second video, “Steven Daigle Stalked,” he is stalked by Grabby (adult video awards) winner Adam Killian “into a dungeon,” Daigle says, “and we have a big orgy that begins as a three-way and then a lot more guys join in,” this time letting Daigle show his video versatility. Since then he has appeared in more than 30 scenes for different DVDs and on Internet sites, most recently for Chi Chi LaRue in “Raising The Bar,” which he describes as a web series with nine episodes about five friends who get together every week for a new episode and have sex with each other and with others who join in. Go to HYPERLINK “http://stevenexposed.com/”stevenexposed.com for more information.

He’s single now and lives in San Diego, but travels widely having made appearances and shot scenes in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale, Phoenix, Toronto and London. He’s looking forward to Secrets and says club events are fun.

“It’s the opportunity to meet my fans and hang out with them, sign autographs and show people that you’re a real person,” he says.  “They’re the reason we exist, because if it weren’t for our fans we wouldn’t be making movies.”

For Royce, this is a potential money-shot for Secrets but also a chance for Daigle’s fans to connect with him in person.

“He is a big prize for the gay male porn industry, one of the most high-profile in the business, and he has the smarts to do what it takes in this industry,” Royce says.

“You don’t do 30 videos unless you’re a hot commodity,” Royce says. “The public speaks and Steven has come out a winner.”