UPDATED:
Thorpe admits to journalist Michael Parkinson that he was first pressed by journalists at age 16 about his sexuality.
Parkinson asked, “You’ve always said that you’re not gay… Is all of that true?”
Thorpe replied, “Well, that’s true, but I’ve thought about this for a long time. I’m not straight. And this is only something that very recently, we’re talking in the past 2 weeks, I’ve been comfortable telling the closest people around me.”
Mamamia previously reported:
It’s the question that has dogged Ian Thorpe for more than a decade and he has finally answered it, confirming that yes, he is gay.
After years of speculation, it is being reported that the Olympic swimming champion made the brave but not entirely unexpected admission to Sir Micheal Parkinson in a tell-all interview, that will be airing on Channel Ten on Sunday night.
The 31-year-old sat down with Parkinson last month, in an interview the veteran interviewer has described as one of the best he’s ever conducted.
It is understood that the interview includes Thorpe’s disclosure that he is gay despite having dated women in the past and how hiding his sexuality impacted on the bouts of depression he has suffered for much of his adult life.
Repeatedly since he became internationally famous as one of the best swimmers the world has ever seen, Thorpe has been questioned about his sexuality and he has always emphatically denied being gay.
His denials never stopped endless rumours and speculative reports about his love life including the time in January 2009 when an Australian media organisation published photographs of him with a male friend at a beach in Brazil. The friend was revealed to be Brazilian swimmer Daniel Mendes who had been Thorpe’s training partner and had reportedly lived with the swimmer as his housemate for three years, according to reports by News Ltd. At the time, Thorpe’s, then manager, David Flaskas was asked by the newspaper to comment on the nature of the relationship between the men and insisted they were simply mates. And there’s every chance they were.
Still, the media were not satisfied and the speculation continued.
This was just another example of the intense level of media intrusion and public interest in his private life that Thorpe has endured since he was a teenager. According to a report in The Guardian in 2012 about his autobiography, This Is Me, which was published that same year:
Innuendos about Thorpe’s sexuality began when he was a boy – and he remembers first being asked if he was gay in an interview when he was only 15. Thorpe insists in his book that, “for the record, I am not gay and all my sexual experiences have been straight”. He argues that his interests in fashion and art and “beautiful things” have led to mistaken assumptions about him. His sexuality really doesn’t matter but he then makes a sad aside: “The truth is I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to avoid relationships … if people get too close to me I often end up pushing them away.”
In his autobiography, he also commented on the frustration he felt at the ongoing speculation about him being gay: “The thing that I find hurtful about it is that people are questioning my integrity and what I say. That’s the only part I find hurtful, that this is something I would be embarrassed about and that I would hide,” Thorpe wrote in his book.
In the past week, since Channel Ten started promoting the interview with a clip of Sir Michael Parkinson asking Thorpe, “Are you gay?” there has been much debate about the relevance of his sexuality and the seemingly unrelenting media obsession with it.
Earlier this week, Mamamia’s Rebecca Sparrow wrote a well recieved and impassioned plea for the speculation to end, arguing it was none of our business whether Ian Thorpe was gay, straight or otherwise.
She wrote:
Whether Ian Thorpe is gay or straight – it’s irrelevant to what he has achieved and what he’s given to Australia by way of national pride. It’s irrelevant to how fast he was in the water. How he handled fame so young. How he deals with his life post-swimming.
We cannot keep banging on and on about the rights of the LGBTQ community and the prejudice they experience in one breath only to disregard those very same things when it comes to discussing one of Australia’s greatest athletes.
You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to campaign and support gay rights and then ghoulishly discuss and dissect whether someone is or isn’t gay. That goes against everything that we are campaigning for: that sexuality DOESN’T MATTER.
You gonna talk the talk about equality for all? Then walk the walk, people.
The Parkinson interview is said to have been brokered by James Erskine who manages both Thorpe and Sir Michael Parkinson. According to News Ltd reports:
Thorpe has recently emerged from a lengthy stay in a rehabilitation facility, having endured very public battles with drugs and alcohol.
The $500,000 deal, brokered by Parkinson’s and Thorpe’s joint manager James Erskine, gives Thorpe $400,000, which also covers his commentary for the Commonwealth Games, and $100,000 to Parkinson, which includes production costs for the tell-all.
The full interview will be broadcast on Network Ten on Sunday Night.
Top Comments
Good on him for feeling more comfortable in his own skin, however for me the most interesting part of the interview was listening to him talk about his races with the footage spliced in. Riveting!
Ian Thorpe is the best swimmer Australia has EVER seen, he has competed with dignity and made Australia incredibly proud. He would have achieved this whether or not he admitted to his sexuality. Yes, we wanted to own him as our swimmer but we don't own his life - stand proud Ian, you have nothing to be ashamed of and the majority of us are proud of your achievements and your courage.