Co-Founder Of World’s First Gay Dating Site Dies In South Africa

51-year-old Henry Badenhorst, the founder of groundbreaking dating site Gaydar, died after falling from a tower block on Saturday in his native South Africa, Buzzfeed reported.

He died a decade after his co-founder and former partner, Gary Frisch, fell to his death in London. The two created Gaydar, which became the world’s largest dating site for gay and bisexual men, in 1999 when a friend said he was too busy to find a partner.

He stepped back from the company in 2010, three years after Mr Frisch’s death, which deeply affected him. But seven years later, Mr Badenhorst’s legacy, both on and offline, within the LGBT community and outside it, can be felt as strongly as ever.

“He realised he changed the world in a way that surprised him,” Rob Curtis, Gaydar’s current managing director told the BBC. It has, Mr Curtis said, made it safer for all LGBT people to meet.
“It was difficult for gay men to find each other, and they were really the first gay social network – and the legacy of that has lived on,” he added