(Photo: James Devaney/WireImage)

When designer Marc Jacobs went back into rehab earlier this year, many people cast aspersions on his younger ex, Jason Preston—but Jacobs wasn’t one of them. “When I first met Jason, I was completely sober and I had no problems staying or being sober for the first few months I met him,” he says of the former rent boy (who tattooed the designer’s name on his forearm) in the September issue of Out. “In order to be with him, because he wasn’t happy staying in … I just ended up in situations where, in order to be entertained or in order to stay out, I would drink or partake in drugs or whatever, but I can’t really blame him. I was changing my value system and what I believed in order to be with somebody, and none of that can make a relationship that’s not working really work.” Jacobs is not currently dating, but he’s been dieting and going to the gym. “I’m doing all the things I used to make fun of. I’d always say, ‘The idea of a guy who spends an hour in his bathroom every morning, grooming and picking out his clothes, that’s just not me, I’d never do that,’ but you know what—I really enjoy doing that now.”

To see more photos of the new Jacobs, visit Out.com

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
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