Footballer John Fashanu has revealed he went to great lengths to keep his late brother, Justin, from coming out of the closet.
The former Wimbledon star went so far as to pay Justin, also a professional footballer, 75,000 pounds to keep him from publicly disclosing that he was gay.
When John was at the height of his sports career in 1990, Justin did decide to come out in an interview with The Sun.
A week later, John, now 53, gave an interview titled “my gay brother is an outcast.”
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“It knocked us dead,” John said recently to The Mirror, recalling his older brother’s decision to come out.
He compared Justin’s revelation to being “like Hiroshima or Nagasaki on our lives.”
John said he “begged” and “threatened” Justin not to come out, and admits to offering the large sum of hush money.
Justin killed himself eight years later, and John regrets how he and his family reacted all those years ago.
“I was wrong,” he said. “It was ignorance on my behalf.”
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“You’ve got to remember the public’s perception of homosexuality at that time was that it was an abomination. It was taboo.”
“I gave him the money because I didn’t want the embarrassment for me or my family,” he told The Mirror.
“Had he come out now, it would be a different ball game.”
In other interviews, however, John denies that his brother was even gay to begin with.
Sidney Davies
sickening
SeeingAll
Sad story, and a reminder how different things were just a short time ago.
Brian JC Kneeland
he does not support his family – and is showing bigotry!
Dave Basora
If he’s looking for pity he won’t get any from me
BigG
Disgusting. That’s not love. That’s pure hate and I hope karma falls on him
Arcamenel
I hope they know they are responsible for his death.
John Howard Fearman
Who would need him as a relative or friend?
broadshoulder
You’ve got to remember the public’s perception of homosexuality at that time was that it was an abomination. It was taboo.”
“I gave him the money because I didn’t want the embarrassment for me or my family,” he told The Mirror.
Makes you sick, Homophobia can and did kill.
Ogre Magi
a fool and his money
Kangol
So tragic. I remember Justin Fashanu’s suicide and always thought that if he’d at least had familial support he might have weathered his legal troubles and depression. Without it or anyone else to turn to, he was on his own and cast adrift.
Rob Mcneel
Boo
captainburrito
Love how he comes out about it now… I hope he can appreciate how it was for his brother. If it bothered him this much, then he surely can appreciate how much bigger a deal it was for Justin back then.
David Winterton
“It was an abomination. It was taboo”.??? Bullshit. I lived in Norwich (where Justin played football) at the time Justin came out. John trying to justify what he did in this way is just making him look worse than he already is. Family always comes first, no exceptions.
Tommysole
Sad about the suicide and tragic how a family member handled the entire situation.
It really makes me sick how as little as 20 years ago, how being gay was handled.
I graduated from high school in 1984 and it was a military school, the number of gay kids that had to practically bury themselves and stay so deep in the closet was tragic as well.
dauntless_a24
Arcamenel; That is an incredibly hateful thing to say and there is nothing in this post that would indicate that the way he was treated by his family had anything whatsoever to do with his suicide. Based on the fact that John, his brother, did NOT want Justin to out himself because of the shame it would bring on him and the family, does not mean that many years later that this even had any bearing on Justin’s decision to commit suicide. John feel bad that his brother killed himself – but without more evidence of how his brother Justin was treated over the intervening years needs to be disclosed before you make such a statement. Until that is disclosed – your comment is just plain ignorant and hateful – done on purpose – John’s action was done out of ignorance.
fprovidence
Very freaking sad…
johnkcopley
Everyone in Britain knows John Fashnu is a socially inept weirdo. It is evil what he did to his brother and it’s a disgrace what he did to his brother and equally disgraceful he is trying to make it it was so terrible in the 1990s. It wasn’t. Twat
Masc Pride
@Arcamenel: Extremely cold. His brother was obviously going through some things. We don’t know if his sexual identity was his brother’s only issue. We’re also talking about the early 90’s. Even in the US, homosexuality was a taboo issue and was still very much linked to HIV and death. What Fasharu did was no different than any other kind of celebrity “damage control”. I find it interesting that Justin felt the need to go public just as John was “at the height of his sports career”. It just sounds like an attempt to steal the spotlight from his brother, which seems to happen a lot when both siblings are in the public eye.
broadshoulder
John Fashanu was a godbotherer and it was that which twisted him against his brother. He saw anything to do with homosexuality as a sin..
The whole thing still makes me angry..
Bob LaBlah
“Justin killed himself eight years later, and John regrets how he and his family reacted all those years ago.”
I think the heart of the story should have centered around WHY Justin (damn, he was cute) killed himself. Not enough details about his life are given. We all know what the climate was back in 1990 in the gay community. AZT was coming on the market but not yet proven to be useless overall for the disease and if you so much as sneezed at the table during Thanksgiving dinner and the family knew you were gay it was enough to clear the table with no one taking a plate home. Whether you had HIV or not that was the atmosphere in most families regardless of how “accepting” they were. Yes, that’s the kind of shit that went on back then and the reason why I, with no regrets, didn’t attend ONE family Thanksgiving dinner throughout the entire 1990’s.
What I want to know is how did Justin react. Did he say “fuck ya’ll, I’m my own man and WILL make it without you support” or did he cry, sulk and hate everything gay from that day on? Did he willfully take the money or was ordered to? Details about Justin please. Fuck this asshole AND his locker room bullshit.
scotshot
@Masc Pride: Blame its all on the queer right?
scotshot
@scotshot: Correction: Blame it all on the queer, right?
alphacentauri
@johnkcopley: Very true.
scotshot
This whole story is a tragedy and more involved than what’s written here.
One item: The entire family disowned him. A year later his loving brother blamed his mother’s death on Justin supposedly blaming the stress on him. Interesting fact: His mother was : already old, very fragile, and suffering from cancer.
But hey – Blame it on the queer, right?
J.T.
Disgusting. What a repellent man.
Bob LaBlah
@scotshot: Could you please post the link to your information. I really would like to read about this. Thanks.
Masc Pride
@scotshot: Only a completely unhinged individual would interpret what I said in such a cynical and defensive way. The point was that no one should have to take the blame in a situation like this. The family trying to keep the guy’s homosexuality a secret was commonly what people did back then. Let’s not forget that gay people commonly hid their sexual orientations back then too, especially to protect their careers. It seems Justin’s career wasn’t going well, and he had a sexual assault charge on his hands as well. His Wikipedia says he killed himself after a minor accused him of sexual assault because he thought he wouldn’t get a fair trial:
“After moving to the United States, in 1998 he was questioned by police when a seventeen-year-old boy accused him of sexual assault. He was charged,[5][6] and an arrest warrant for him was issued in Howard County, Maryland on 3 April 1998, but he had already left his flat.[5] According to his suicide note, fearing he would not get a fair trial because of his homosexuality,[6] he fled to England[6] where he killed himself in London in May 1998.[5][6] His suicide note stated that the sex was consensual.[5][6]”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Fashanu
silveroracle
Very sad.
lolacola
A few years ago John Fashanu’s daughter Amal did a TV show in UK about gay football players. She focused on her Uncle and was very upset when she learned how awful her father was to his brother. It was sad to watch, but it was something that stuck with me. It’s on youtube if anyone wants to watch it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhX9idfN3Hg
Giancarlo85
@Masc Pride: You always has something to say don’t you? You always think you know everything about gay people.
OzJosh
@SeeingAll: Oh, come on! It was 1990, not 1950. There were plenty of out gay people and public attitudes had already changed substantially. To now plead ignorance and social pressure is just a giant crock, even for a socially challenged sportsman. If he’d defended those attitudes in the 70s I’d forgive him. If it was the 80s I’d cut him some slack, albeit with a raised eyebrow. But by 1990 there is no defence. He was just an a**hole.
Masc Pride
@OzJosh: You make it seem as if 1990 was like 2008. 1990 was just out of the 80’s and fresh off the AIDS epidemic and its association with gay men; you don’t think that negatively affected public opinion? There was still a good amount of stigma well past 1990. The 70’s might’ve actually been a little better.
Giancarlo85
@Masc Pride: Of course you know everything… considering you were probably born in 1997 or 1998.
Arthur Saavedra
Asshole
rextrek
F him – Glad my family was never like that – and I came out in 1982…..feel sorry for the poor guy – went and off’d himself.
Bob LaBlah
@Masc Pride…….thank you for that post. NOW I remember this story because I read about it when it happened but couldn’t make the connection immediately. Thanks again.
bonik
Judge not, that ye be not judged.
Arcamenel
I couldn’t care less what you closeted homos have to say. It doesn’t matter what happened within that 8 year span, having an unsupported family in his time of need most certainly contributed to his decision. They killed him and need to live with that until their dying days. I don’t care about the time period. I don’t care about the public perception. He was their family and they betrayed him.
Masc Pride
Facts have clearly been manipulated/omitted here to create a victim. In reality, this guy killed himself to escape punishment for a sexual assault charge. Not only did he make reference to the sexual assault charge in his suicide note, he cited it as the reason for the suicide. Dead man talking. It doesn’t get any clearer. He didn’t make any mention of his family.
Giancarlo85
@Masc Pride: You don’t really have a clue what happened.
Blackceo
Seems like the fact that 2 months prior to his suicide he was accused of sexually assaulting a 17 year old in Maryland may have contributed more to his suicide than anything. That’s a rather important piece of the story Queerty just happens to leave out. You should know that people were going to try and indirectly blame the brother and/or family for his suicide with the information you put in this article.
zooby
@Giancarlo85: Don’t was your time with “MascPride”, he’s a closeted queen who is a staunch defender of people (especially entertainers) staying in the closet because “OMG SOCIETY MAKES IT HARD”.