LA Pride, West Hollywood, and the Messiest Gay Divorce in WeHo History

Christopher Street West dropped the announcement on Tuesday the 56th annual LA Pride Parade will go down on June 14, 2026, in Hollywood. This year’s theme: “Rise with Pride.”  West Hollywood holds its own celebration, WeHo Pride June 5 through 7 at West Hollywood Park.

Jeff Hiller, who won the 2025 Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy for HBO’s Somebody Somewhere, was named Celebrity Grand Marshal. Civil rights attorney and transgender activist Mia Yamamoto was named Community Grand Marshal. The late Shirley Raines, who died in January 2026 at 58, was named Legacy Grand Marshal.

It’ll be the fifth year LA Pride will be in Hollywood after several decades of being in WeHo. Five years in Hollywood. Seemed like the right moment to revisit one of West Hollywood’s messiest divorces — divided assets, dueling parades, and a custody battle over who gets the kids.

The Letter

The letter arrived July 14, 2020. Two paragraphs. Polite but clear: the marriage was over.

“As our non-profit organization continues to evolve and grow, we want to inform you of our intention to move the LA Pride Parade and Festival out of West Hollywood in 2021.”

Mayor Lindsey Horvath called it “a surprise.” Then she added: “Its content makes clear this decision has been some time in the making.”

The relationship between Christopher Street West and the City of West Hollywood had been deteriorating for at least 15 years.

The Money

West Hollywood subsidized LA Pride for decades. The city covered public safety, sanitation, and permitting costs and provided city property at no charge. By 2020, CSW had requested more than $3 million in cash and in-kind services for the 50th anniversary celebration. The pandemic canceled the event before it happened.

In 2017, the City Council voted to allocate $1.87 million to support LA Pride. That was a 70 percent increase from the year before. It came after CSW lost $415,000 in fiscal year 2016.

A 2019 Beacon Economics report commissioned by CSW documented what the city was getting in return. LA Pride generated $74.7 million in economic output for Los Angeles County that year. Of that, $27.7 million was concentrated in West Hollywood. The event supported 397 jobs in the city and generated $896,000 in city tax revenue.

CSW took all of that with it when it left.

The Collapse Nobody Was Supposed to Know About

In early 2017, CSW board president Chris Classen told a newly elected board member there were only hundreds of dollars in the organization’s account. He said he would personally cover the $1,500 monthly rent at the Pacific Design Center if he had to. The organization was counting on a $200,000 advance from a beverage vendor to pay its bills.

That board member was Dan Morin. He was a 38-year West Hollywood resident. He had participated in the first Pride March in New York City in 1970. From 1983 to 1989 he oversaw APLA’s participation in LA Pride as director of volunteers. He joined the CSW board in October 2016. He resigned in January 2017.

He refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

The NDA applied, in Morin’s words, “for all time.” It bound board members from disclosing anything CSW deemed confidential, including information suggesting the board was lying to the community or to the West Hollywood City Council. Violations could result in litigation and financial penalties.

Four other board members resigned the same day in December rather than sign a revised version. Those who signed remain bound by it.

Classen later told the City Council the NDA was tightened after financial documents were leaked to WEHOville — now WEHOonline — which published a story revealing CSW had lost $395,000 on the 2016 event. CSW had not disclosed the loss to its own board when WEHOville reported it. CSW still had not made the information public.

Morin detailed what he found inside the organization. The bylaws still referenced telegrams as a form of communication. When he volunteered to revise them, Classen told him to spend one day on the bylaws and move on. Survey data from the 2016 Pride Festival could only be viewed at the office and could not be copied. Monthly financial reports had to be initialed and returned to the treasurer at the end of each meeting, also without copying.

Morin brought the city’s Public Facilities Commission ad hoc Pride report to Classen’s attention. Classen said he didn’t understand the rub. After Morin explained it, Classen texted back: “I smell a rat. Something is off about this request.”

Classen lived in North Hollywood. Morin strongly recommended he sign up for West Hollywood city email alerts. Two months later, Classen still had not done it.

“CSW seemed 46 days old, not 46 years old,” Morin wrote.

Classen and board member Craig Bowers were partners in an events promotion business. In 2016, they recast the Pride festival as a music event targeting Millennials. Critics called it the gay Coachella. Transgender and lesbian programming was cut. Several LGBTQ groups called for a boycott. The festival lost $395,000. Total losses for fiscal year 2016 reached $415,000, depleting surpluses built up by prior leadership.

Classen told the City Council that CSW had lost money in all but four of the past 11 years. The 2016 loss was the largest — more than three times the $91,486 loss recorded in 2009.

Classen remained president. The organization moved forward with plans to hire an executive director at $120,000 per year plus benefits.

The Warnings Nobody Acted On

The 2016 collapse was not the first time West Hollywood and CSW had come to the edge.

In 2005, the City of West Hollywood created a 15-member Christopher Street West Task Force and held a community forum. Board member Enrique Reveles later described it.

“It turned out to be a defensive-type atmosphere from Christopher Street West against any changes whatsoever,” Reveles said. “It was a very long process, there were a lot of people involved that put time and energy into it and nothing happened.”

According to city staff records, the concerns raised at the 2005 forum were nearly identical to complaints being made a decade later. Admission prices. Entertainment quality. Lack of a political element. Grand marshal selection. Lack of creativity in the parade.

Nothing changed.

By 2013, West Hollywood’s Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board voted unanimously to hold its own community forum about LA Pride. Board members debated whether to hold it at all.

The concern was not whether the forum was warranted. The concern was retaliation.

“The only danger that would be attached to holding the forum is I think the city of LA would love to get the whole thing,” said longtime board member Ivy Bottini at the October 2013 meeting.

In July of that year, several CSW board members had told WEHOville the group was considering moving the event out of West Hollywood, citing lack of support from the business community and disputes with the city over costs. CSW president Rodney Scott issued a statement saying that was not true.

Co-chair Amy Ruskin pushed back. “I can’t say I want to be blackmailed into thinking we couldn’t have a community forum because they might be upset and move,” she said.

The forum was held. Nothing changed.

The Personal History

In 2018, Estevan Montemayor, 29, became CSW board president. The 2017 fiscal year had ended with a $373,332 surplus. Madonna Cacciatore had become the organization’s first full-time executive director. The finances had stabilized.

The politics had not.

In 2019, Councilmember John Duran faced mounting calls to resign over allegations of inappropriate behavior toward younger gay men. Montemayor appeared before the City Council and called for Duran’s censure.

“I am speaking as a resident who has considered John Duran a friend, even a mentor,” Montemayor said. “But at the end of the day we have to consider the actions that we have all witnessed and that some of us have been recipients of — including myself.”

Duran was removed from the CSW subcommittee — the body responsible for communication between the city and LA Pride. It was not replaced.

The Breaking Point

In the summer of 2020, with the 50th anniversary event canceled due to the pandemic, CSW moved to organize a solidarity march in response to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The organization applied for a permit in West Hollywood without notifying City Hall.

Black trans community leaders objected to a CSW-led march. CSW withdrew and deferred to the All Black Lives Matter coalition. ABLM held its own non-permitted march on Hollywood Boulevard. It drew some of the largest crowds Los Angeles had seen in years.

Duran called CSW’s handling of the solidarity march “very reckless.”

Duran and Councilmember John D’Amico added an agenda item to the July 20 City Council meeting: a formal Request for Proposals for a 2021 Pride event in West Hollywood. The item made no reference to CSW.

No subcommittee meetings had been held. The RFP item had not been discussed with CSW. Mayor Horvath noted at the meeting that the announcement came without warning.

CSW’s departure letter arrived before the council voted.

Duran later posted on Facebook that he and D’Amico had floated the idea of opening bidding to other producers four weeks earlier, and that CSW’s letter was their response.

The letter cited construction at West Hollywood Park. The changing demographics of Greater Los Angeles. The organization’s commitment to social change movements. It made no mention of the RFP, the solidarity march, or Duran.

D’Amico did not hide his position at the July 20 meeting. “Now that CSW is no longer engaged or interested and out of the discussion, we can truly reinvent our Pride experiences,” he said.

Councilmember Lauren Meister said: “I think all of the money we did contribute — and I don’t know that we were an equal partner.”

Two Prides, One City

In June 2022, LA Pride returned to Hollywood Boulevard. The parade drew more than 146,000 people. Pride Village replaced the ticketed festival. A separate event, LA Pride in the Park, moved to Los Angeles State Historic Park downtown.

West Hollywood launched WeHo Pride the same month. The city brought a float to the LA Pride Parade in 2022 and again in 2023. LA Pride did not reciprocate.

At an April 2025 City Council meeting, Councilmember John Erickson asked staff to confirm West Hollywood would not participate in LA Pride that year. “Last year was awful,” Erickson said. Staff said participation was not under consideration. The council voted unanimously to extend its contract with event producer JJLA for WeHo Pride through 2029.

West Hollywood sent council members to World Pride in Washington, D.C. instead.

This year, LA Pride returns to Hollywood Boulevard on June 14 for its 56th annual parade under the theme “Rise with Pride.” WeHo Pride Weekend runs June 5 through 7 at West Hollywood Park — one week earlier, half a mile away.

There are no plans for the two organizations to coordinate.