You may remember Bronson Pinchot from the 80s-90s sitcom Perfect Strangers. You possibly caught him in his stint as a house renovator on the now-defunct DIY Network. But you probably recognize him from the Beverly Hills Cop movies. Or, you know him from his refreshingly frank 2009 interview with The Onion’s AV Club, where he outed Tom Cruise as a homophobe (they were costars in Risky Business). Pinchot returns as art dealer Serge in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, out now on Netflix — CB says it’s great! While chatting with People Mag about the latest installment, Pinchot also recounted those two seasons of the ill-fated The Bronson Pinchot Project for DIY, and once again he pulled no punches: he said he lost a lot of money and homes in that venture, by spending around triple the budget. From his telling, it also sounds like the rest of his reno team was as green as he was.

But aside from acting, the Yale School of Drama grad has long had a passion for home renovation. More than a decade ago, he decided to make that hobby his sole focus as he snatched up several properties in rural Pennsylvania.

“I was able to buy six houses for the price of a New York condo,” says Pinchot, who loved the historic architecture of the homes in Susquehanna County, Pa.

But he wasn’t beloved by the locals. “People did not understand or couldn’t absorb the reason that an actor would want to live 150 miles from New York City in the middle of nowhere,” he says. “They could never quite believe it.”

He says many folks in town were resistant to “Hollywood people” and made up outlandish stories about him.

Pinchot claims a pastor spread rumors that the actor’s then-assistant’s friend, who mowed the lawn in a swimsuit and sometimes sang opera around the house, was his “sex slave,” and her arias were the sounds of her “pleasure.”

“The reality was she was just an eccentric artist mowing the lawn in her bikini and then vocalizing,” he says.

But unwelcoming neighbors weren’t his biggest problem. He got in over his head when the now-defunct DIY Network filmed him for The Bronson Pinchot Project, home-renovation series that documented his work in 2012 and 2013.

“I made it a financial drain,” he admits. “They would give me X for my fee, Y for the construction, and then I would spend triple X and triple Y for each episode.”

The show was canceled after two seasons, and the bills piled up. Several of the homes were foreclosed on and sold at auction.

“I learned an amazing amount,” says Pinchot, “and I lost my shirt.” He shrugs off the ordeal now, adding, “What are you going to do?”

[From People]

Oh my God, can we all agree that clergy are the biggest gossips around, despite Pope Frankie’s protestations otherwise? But for this local PA pastor to start a rumor that Pinchot had a sex slave, all because a minimally-clad, singing woman was doing yard work, yeesh! And let’s be real here, who among us hasn’t done some gardening dressed in a bathing suit whilst singing their favorite opera aria? BE HONEST. Yeah I know, haha, but I’ve never been more serious than when I say that “The reality was she was just an eccentric artist mowing the lawn in her bikini and then vocalizing,” is now my most favorite sentence of all time. If only Pinchot had had an accountant or project manager sporting a speedo on staff, maybe we’d still be enjoying his reno show.

Anyway, I walked away from this interview wishing we’d gotten to see more of Bronson Pinchot over the years. I respect anyone who calls it like it is, and I’m sorry he hasn’t had the steady and diverse career befitting a character actor of his talent and distinctive name. What’s in a name? ‘Bronson Pinchot’ walked so that ‘Benedict Cumberbatch’ could fly, is alls I’m sayin’…

Photos credit: Getty Images for Netflix, Melinda Sue Gordon/Netflix