British-American freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy was on Conan this week where he talked about why he decided to come out as gay late last year.
The way Kenworthy tells it, though, is actually quite funny as, apparently, he had initially decided to come out before that. On live TV, during the 2014 Sochi Olympics. If he won a gold medal.
As Kenworthy explained, because of all the massive homophobia going on in Russia, he felt it might be a positive thing to come out as gay, as he thought the anti-gay movement in Russia was crazy.
“Leading up to the Olympics, there was all this anti-LGBT legislation and they had warned people about “If you are gay, or any of the athletes are gay, try not to show it”, because it’s very unsafe, and not accepted. And I was like, that’s bullshit. I mean I wasn’t even out but I was like “That’s ridiculous”. And I had a boyfriend at the time, and had kind of talked about landing the best run ever and winning the gold medal, and kissing him at the bottom. That would be my way of telling everyone”.
Kenworthy, however, didn’t win a gold medal, he won the silver. Then it also dawned on him at a later point, his mother and father didn’t know he was gay, and he hadn’t come out to his brothers either. So, in retrospect, it was probably a darned good thing it didn’t happen.
“It would have been not only a shock to the sport and to the Olympics, but my family would have been like “What the hell?”
Watch Gus Kenworthy talking about coming out on Conan this week. What a lovely man he is. And hella cute.
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