I’ve been wanting to share this with you for ages but it never seemed like the right time.

This is the interview Damiano set up for Jack and Channon in episode 37! It’s a bit fluffier than you would get in an actual interview, but I figure that’s better, right? Boring re-hashing of details and business stuff isn’t why you’re here. I figure you just want to see Channon being terribly sweet. That’s what I want, anyway ^_^

So here you go!

(Warning: spoilers for Season Four onward)

The Public Face; a Private Man: Johnathan Nash in conversation

by Julie Thompson

Of all the things I could have expected, seeing Jonathan Nash make tea was not one of them.

Nash is as tall and vital in person as he looks in his photos, but today, instead of a bespoke Italian wool suit, he’s dressed in jeans and a grey-green henley. He is also barefoot, comfortable enough in his own home to forego shoes. 

There’s a shoe rack beside the front door; I hesitate, my Canadian upbringing kicking in at once. “Should I take these off?”

Jonathan Nash, CEO and co-founder of JNNS Technologies, whose net worth is estimated at 1.7 billion dollars, is making me tea.

He waves a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. Can I get you a drink? We were just about to boil the kettle.”

I do worry about it. When his back is turned—shockingly, Jonathan Nash, CEO and co-founder of JNNS Technologies, whose net worth is estimated at 1.7 billion dollars, is making me tea—I slip off my shoes. It’s just polite.

I have arrived at Nash’s Santa Rita condominium on a Saturday afternoon in spring. Outside, the weather is wet and muggy, inside the air is the perfect temperature, laced with the scent of baking. The condo is open plan, with high ceilings and a mezzanine floor, but remarkably comfortable. Unexpected spots of colour brighten up the expected hardwood and leather and chrome, lending the minimalist space some warmth. 

This, I’m told, is the influence of the fiancé everyone is so curious about. “Channon likes colours,” Nash says. “He’ll be down in a moment. Where would you like to set up?”

He’s disarmingly casual, this captain of technology in his lavish bayside condominium. I’m reminded that he wasn’t born to money. The popular mythology of JNNS Tech is that he and Nathaniel Scott built it from nothing; he assures me that this is only partially true.

“Nate and I come from comfortably middle-class homes. Sure, we didn’t start with a million dollar nest egg from our parents, but we had plenty of advantages and managed to charm some early investors.” He smiles, and I can believe it. Nash is charismatic, and I think for a moment that I’ve been treated to the full strength of his smile.

Then his fiancé walks into the kitchen, and I realise my mistake. “There you are,” Nash says, with a megawatt grin. “Tea?”

Channon Beaumont isn’t what you might think. Clean-cut and comfortably but stylishly dressed—he too has foregone shoes—he has a disarming artlessness to him. He offers me a nervously polite smile and a plate of chocolate chip cookies. “I made them,” he adds, as if in warning. “If that bothers you.”

It’s hard to be objective about freshly-baked, chocolate-chip cookies, and these are very, very good.

“I’m no-one special,” Beaumont says, with a downward flick of the eyes that speaks to an intense shyness. “Except to Jack.”

Everything I know about Channon Beaumont boils down to what was made public following his public outing on Twitter. Someone in the Nash family shared a Snapchat of Nash proposing to Beaumont, followed by the ‘He said yes!’ photo that got everyone talking. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if someone else hadn’t tweeted the picture. Nash was recognised, Beaumont congratulated. There the story began to develop sordid details.

Nash has just celebrated his thirty-eighth birthday. Beaumont is turning twenty, and works for JNNS Technologies as a software developer.

“Mostly help desk,” he says. “I like solving problems.”

The implications are seedy, on the surface. But they didn’t meet in the workplace. Nash was staying next door to the Beaumont family home during the Summer of 2015.

“I caught him trespassing,” Nash says. “He charmed me.”

Beaumont laughs at this. “I’m not charming.”

He is almost painfully self-deprecating. He tells me that he’d played varsity football. “I was okay,” he says with a shrug. “Not good enough for a scholarship, but…we did okay.”

He says the same things about his studies. Nash clears his throat at one point to interject. “Channon speaks French,” he says, and Beaumont shakes his head.

“Not fluently.”

He is disarmingly average, though startlingly mature. He listens with an intense focus and says thoughtfully kind things when asked his opinion. And instead of spending his time playing video games, like other young men his age, it turns out he makes them.

“It’s a hobby,” he says, self-effacement deeply ingrained. “It’s just for fun.”

“Channon is very talented,” Nash says with obvious affection.

“I’m no-one special,” Beaumont says, with a downward flick of the eyes that speaks to an intense shyness. “Except to Jack.”

The affection between them is tangible. There are no uncomfortable displays, nothing too intimate to show a stranger, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people more concerned with one another. There’s an unexpected undercurrent of protectiveness, of constant consideration. They have the air of a couple who has worn into one another over a lifetime, which is startling when you consider the brevity of their relationship and the chasm of experience between them.

“Next year, I’m getting married. That’s as far as I’m thinking right now.”

“Channon took care of me after the accident,” Nash says, and Beaumont’s wince is visible.

They don’t speak of it in specifics, just call it ‘the accident’, but it’s public knowledge. Nash was in a vehicular collision in late 2016. He wasn’t one of the drivers and walked away with a serious head injury and lingering concussion symptoms. Now, he seems completely recovered. 

“We went skiing for Christmas,” he says as if in evidence. “Channon picked it up like a pro.”

This deflection seems deliberate, part of a pattern. Asking Nash questions about himself only elicits praise for his fiancé. It’s an oddly humble habit for a man who has never in the past shied away from acknowledging his own accomplishments but always kept his private life locked up tight. Now, he seems intent on drawing attention to his fiancé, praising his accomplishments as if proud of him.

Beaumont seems nonplussed by it. He listens to Nash with that same intensity, his eyes fixed on the motions of his fiancé’s hands.

I’d expected to find that they don’t have anything in common—what could possibly unite a CEO approaching the close of his fourth decade and a man not yet twenty?—but Beaumont calls himself a nerd, and Nash shrugs. “If you are, I am.”

They have a shared love of science fiction and superhero movies. “Do superheroes count as science fiction?” Beaumont asks. They debate the question: there’s a cheekiness to Beaumont’s arguments that Nash seems more than willing to indulge. I ask if Beaumont is a Star Trek or Star Wars person and he fixes me with a wide-eyed look of incredulity. “Isn’t that a—what’s it called? A false dichotomy?”

It emerges that Beaumont is responsible for an increase in Nash’s charitable contributions—Doctors Without Borders, the Santa Rita Free Housing Initiative, and the California Tribal Fund, amongst others. “Channon keeps me honest,” Nash says. “We used to have a deal where for every dollar I spent on him, he got to make an equal contribution to the charity of his choice.”

“We still have that deal,” Beaumont interjects. “But now I get a—what is it? Charity budget?”

“You’re my donations director,” Nash says with one of his wry smiles.

Beaumont has no intention of attending college and seems content to continue working for JNNS for now. “I don’t have a five year plan,” he says. “Next year, I’m getting married. That’s as far as I’m thinking right now.”

“Channon can do whatever he wants,” Nash tells me, pouring tea from a pot that is a surprising shade of eggplant. “Work. College. Make games.”

Beaumont nods solemnly, “Start a band.”

Nash appears completely charmed by this. “What kind of band would you start?”

“A rock band,” Beaumont says. “With ambiguously gay lyrics. Like the Killers.”

“I didn’t know you liked the Killers.”

“Everyone likes the Killers,” Beaumont tells him blithely, before turning to me with a smile. “Do you like the Killers?” I confess that I do. “See?”

“So, Channon’s going to start a band,” Nash says, as if this is now settled. “I have the company. And I’d like to travel more for pleasure, not just business.” He looks at his fiancé, who is watching him with an unmistakably fond look. “Where would you like to go?”

“Anywhere you go,” Beaumont says, smiling. “But you promised me Kyoto.”

Nash grins at him. “And I always keep my promises to you.”

I don’t know what I expected here, but this comfortable companionship isn’t it.

He seems charmed by this, much as I feel charmed by Nash and Beaumont both. If it’s a trick, it is an elegant one. 

When I leave, Beaumont hands me a gift box of cookies. “Thanks for coming,” he says, as if I’d just dropped in for a coffee. “It was nice meeting you.” He has another box for the photographer, Arnie. “Good luck with your exhibition,” he says, with every evidence of sincerity.

Earlier, Beaumont had caught Arnie examining a framed picture. “That’s by Cara D’Angelo,” he said, which sparked the kind of secret conclave that two people with shared interests inevitably make. Later, Arnie tells me that Beaumont is shy with his opinions but enthusiastic, and politely interested in Arnie’s upcoming exhibition. 

He seems charmed by this, much as I feel charmed by Nash and Beaumont both. If it’s a trick, it is an elegant one. 

I shake Nash’s hand and congratulate him, which seems to amuse him. “Thank you,” he says, and he adds, with a hint of irony, “I feel more fortunate than I deserve.”

A week later, I bump into them at Arnie’s exhibition. Beaumont seems thrilled to recognize me. “Have you seen the one by the window?”

I think he means the photos from the shoot and tell him that they haven’t been finalized yet.

He seems puzzled by this. “That one,” he says, and points out a photo of a man in silhouette before a sunlit window. 

The man is dressed in a sharp Italian suit, his back to the camera, the strong line of his jaw limned in light. I glance at Nash and see he has not missed the resemblance—he winks.

“I’m going to buy it,” Beaumont tells me. He looks happy. 

For myself, I hope it lasts. Maybe Jonathan Nash thinks himself unworthy of such happiness, but Channon Beaumont, at least, deserves it.

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Feature image: Original Photo by Hisham Yahya from Pexels