A ‘gay friendly’ hotel owner who met with homophobic Republican Ted Cruz has labelled gay men “entitled” and “cheap”.

Ian Reisner, who owns gay-friendly Out NYC in Upper West Side in Manhattan, last week met with Republican Presidential wannabe Ted Cruz, in the same week he filed a number of last week by labelling gay men as ‘entitled’ and ‘cheap’.

Mr Reisner and his business partner Mati Weiderpass hosted Mr Cruz at the penthouse apartment they co-own in New York City.

Responding to the recent protests outside his hotel, Mr Reisner told New York Magazine: “You know, it’s so ironic — I wanted to build kind of a community centre in the gateway to Hell’s Kitchen, which in 2008–2009 was already a gay place and now it’s even gayer. Very close to Broadway.

“My only point is, this has not been a profitable venture.”

“Gays are cheap. They’re frugal; gays are frugal. Let me retract that… gays are entitled… Do you know how challenging it is to make a penny off a gay person? I’m gay, I don’t pay cover. I’m gay, where’s my comp drink?”

Mr Reisner also discussed how the gay community have misinterpreted his motives and beliefs, saying: “The hate against us is so strong, for me, it literally makes me weep. That there’s a vast group of gay folks in America that don’t know what I have done for the gay cause, consistently for decades, and now think I’m anti-gay.

“There’s such a massive divide between the reality of what we do, did and do, and their limited thinking of what we do because of a few facts and a few headlines.”

Mr Reisner last week apologised for hosting the event for Republican Presidential hopeful Cruz – who has a terrible record on gay rights.

He wrote on Facebook: “I am shaken to my bones by the e-mails, texts, postings and phone calls of the past few days. I made a terrible mistake.

“I was ignorant, naive and much too quick in accepting a request to co-host a dinner with Cruz at my home without taking the time to completely understand all of his positions on gay rights.”

The event came as Cruz launched a desperate attempt to halt same-sex weddings, filing two bills that would attempt to nullify an expected Supreme Court ruling in favour of equal marriage in all 50 states.

Mr Cruz was picked as top choice for President last year by attendees at the anti-gay Values Voter Summit – which is run by a group that regularly compares gay rights to the holocaust.

Other possible contenders for the Republican nomination include Dr Ben Carson – who damaged his chances by claiming prisons prove being gay is a choice – and Jeb Bush, who has recently hired an anti-gay activist to work on his campaign team.