I am currently skating in Europe but want to provide a statement regarding my appointment to the Olympic delegation. I have been fortunate to represent the United States of America in three different Olympics, and now I am honored to be part of the presidential delegation to the Olympics in Sochi. It has been my experience from competing around the world and in Russia that Olympic athletes can come together in friendship, peace and mutual respect regardless of their individual country’s practices.
It is my desire to be defined by my achievements and my contributions. While I am proud to play a public role in representing the American Olympic Delegation as a former Olympic athlete, I have always reserved my private life for my family and friends and will continue to do so. I am many things: a son, a brother, and uncle, a friend, an athlete, a cook, an author, and being gay is just one part of who I am. First and foremost I am an American athlete and I am proud to live in a country that encourages diversity, openness and tolerance. As an athlete, I hope we can remain focused on the Olympic spirit which celebrates achievement in sport by peoples of all nations.”
— Figure skating legend and now the third openly gay U.S. delegate to the Sochi Olympics Brian Boitano coming out in a statement.
Ottoman
Not a surprise but good for him. I almost expected him to announce it in Russia….now just waiting on Janet Napolitano…
right0boy
It only seems natural, since after he built the pyramids he beat up Kublai Khan. He doesn’t take shit from anybody.
yaoming
Better him than Johnny Weir, anyway.
tricky ricky
I’ve seen his cooking show. I thought he was already out.
tardis
He’d make a plan and he’d follow through, that’s what Brian Boitano’d do!
Dawson
Who knew?
mz.sam
I’m as stunned about Brian as Johnny Weir announced to the media that he is of Russian descent.
Spike
What, no mention of Tom Daley?
jwrappaport
@Spike: Don’t jinx it. I just can’t take any more non-stories about him.
Sammy Schlipshit
@Ottoman:
Napolitano???? Sorry, but I think that’s gonna be a long, futile wait…
Cam
” I am many things: a son, a brother, and uncle, a friend, an athlete, a cook, an author, and being gay is just one part of who I am.”
___________________
Yeah, but he only thought one of those things was shameful enough to hide all these years.
Glad he finally decided to come out, but his coming out is more of the Sean Hayes and less of the Ellen DeGenerous type.
frenchjr25
As far as I know he has been publicly out for almost 20 years. It might not have made national news but here in the San Francisco Bay Area he has never publicly hidden his being gay. I can remember a news report about his being gay in either 1993 or 1994.
pauleky
@Cam: Um, Ellen was closeted for a very long time, as well. We all have our own journeys.
erasure25
He’s soo good looking!
Dominickj
@Cam: He didn’t hide it. He was out to friends and family and that’s all he had to do!
stanhope
Good for Brian….pass me the PAUL WYLIE please!!!!!!!! He’s the one I’m waiting on. That butt is perfection.
ariniah724
my roomate’s sister makes $75 an hour on the computer. She has been without a job for 9 months but last month her check was $19668 just working on the computer for a few hours. find out here…….. http://tiny.cc/u1zc8w
jimbryant
While I congratulate Brian Boitano, you’ve got to understand that he is now no longer his own person. The gay community owns him now. It will attempt to destroy him too. The gay community’s narrative is that there has to be a victim, don’t forget.
Ultimately, the gay community destroys that which it owns. It then moves on to the next symbol, owning and destroying it in turn. It needs a non-stop sequence of symbols to own and destroy so that it can keep playing the victim card at every turn.
The truly tragic thing is that the gay community does eventually destroy people but with a clever disguise. The disguise is “bright lights, dance music, happy drugs, have a good time”. Underneath the veneer you have people dying from drug abuse and AIDS.
Sammy Schlipshit
@jimbryant:
Wow!!!! Are you really that self loathing? How sad you must be….and seemingly quite angry.
Bring it down a notch or two, jimbo…..
I think you need to get out in the world and meet some different folks from the ones you seem to now know…
multitasker
I guess he’s one of those people whom we all assumed was gay because he didn’t hide it; so when he finally gets around to saying it expressly, the real surprise is that we hadn’t noticed he’d never publicly announced he had a category label. I’m amused but also pleased that he recognizes the particular position in which he resides at this moment in history in this particular situation.
jimbryant
Sammy Schlipshit,
I have been into the world. It’s a place full of dishonesty and false advertising, particularly the gay scene. The gay bar owners are making a mint out of misery disguised as happiness.
Sammy Schlipshit
@jimbryant:
You need to get out of your rut. It’s a whole beautiful world when one is traveling with a better attitude.
When one feels crappy and oppressed, I’m thinkin’ that’s all that can be seen.
For one thing, stay out of the bars.
Depending on where you live, there are other avenues to travel with our gay brothers and sisters.
Sure, there is a lot of crap all around….but stop looking for it and start looking up instead of down.
I wish you the best. It’s just that you and I have really different approaches to daily life and the big picture.
Ottoman
@Sammy Schlipshit: well Napolitano was also picked to go to Sochi which seems odd since she’s no longer in the administration nor is she a former Olympic athlete. That she remains unmarried and likes basketball, according to Wikipedia, only furthers my curiosity, lol
the other Greg
@jimbryant: Hey – it was only YESTERDAY that you posted this: “Why aren’t there any openly gay male athletes? Is Obama afraid to appoint openly gay men? He’s a flop of a President who appears to be afraid of openly gay men.”
Now Brian Boitano, a member of the delegation, officially comes out and you’re still miserable!
Maybe the problem is you? Well it usually is, around here!
modernfamilyfan
Interesting, Boitano comes out as gay and not against a boycott of the Olympics and Queerty seems to be okay with it??
Kangol
@the other Greg:
Exactly! What is @jimbryant talking about? Obama has “openly gay men” throughout the government. He just appointed an openly gay man (who has headed down there with his husband) as Ambassador to the Dominican Republic.
President Obama has appointed more than 250 openly-LGBT people to posts in his government, among them gay men such as
– John Berry, Director of the Office of Personnel Management;
– Fred Hochberg, chairman of the Export Import Bank;
– and David Huebner, Ambassador to New Zealand.
Also, he has nominated a large number of openly-LGBT people for federal judicial posts, among them gay men such as
– J. Paul Oetken; judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the first openly gay man on the federal bench;
– and Michael Fitzgerald, judge, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Please inform yourself about such things, and try as best you can to deal with your several self-directed h0mophobia.
Tackle
Brian Boitano did not just come out. He has been out for the past 20 yrs. If you read carefully, he just mentioned being gay among other things in a statement that had to do with him being selected to the Presidential delegation to the Olympics. Either this writer is being sarcastic or is uninformed. I’m gonna guess the later:
This has happen before on Queerty: a writer stating someone has just come out, but that person has been out for yrs. I’m sure this has to do with the age of the writers. If this writer is between 25-30: that would have made him 5-10yrs old when Brian came out. Combined that with the lack of social media back then, and a lazy writer not doing research, creates a recipe for a mistake…
Billysees
Good article to simply quote Brian Boitano.
Great comments too.
Billysees
@Kangol:
Thanks Kangol for summarizing some of President Obama’s accomplishments for the LGBT community.
ncman
@Tackle: Please provides us with links to the news reports of the day when you claim he actually came out.
Tackle
@ncman: I cannot provide you with a link to the actual “day” that Brian came out. However, not providing you with a link does not make my claim not true. And I cannot be the only one here who does not recal Brian being on the Larry King Show, after he won the gold medal in 1988, identifying with a young boy who was being taunted & ridiculed, because he was a gay figure skater.
And people are confusing comming out with an announcement. Comming out on Brian’s part,( I’m sure) was done yrs ago. With ones self, family, close friends, loved ones. Like it should be. That statement was an announcement. Which I’m sure Brian “will” verify.
AuntieChrist
@jimbryant: Hey sweetie darling…I have an airline ticket for you and guest4ever to Uganda…Merry Christmas girls.
Evji108
@jimbryant: Sorry you are so sad and filled with negativity. I hope things get better for you. You don’t have to believe everything you think, especially the negative stuff – you might find the opposite of what you believe is true if you have eyes to see.
Cam
Could the hoard of little Hollywood press interns who come in here every single time a closet case comes out to claim that they were already out please give it up?
If he was out he wouldn’t have come out.
My comment stated clearly that he had no trouble in interviews discussing all of those other aspects of his life, that there was only one he never mentioned and so obviously there was only one he was ashamed of.
Cam
@pauleky: said…. “Um, Ellen was closeted for a very long time, as well. We all have our own journeys.”
__________________
Ellen came out at the height of her career at the time and did not qualify it by minimization.
ncman
@Tackle: Coming out for a public figure / celebrity such as Brian means much more than telling your friends, family and loved ones. It means making a public statement. You claim he made a public statement on the Larry King Show. That should be easy enough to verify via transcripts.
Dixie Rect
No kidding, thought this old girl was out ages ago. Guess not. No one cares now, they cared THEN. What does Tom Daley think about this, Queerty? You’re not covering all aspects of the story, I see.
modernfamilyfan
Interesting again how my original comment has been ignored. Johnny Weir was almost cruxified for saying as a gay man he wanted the Sochi Olympics to go on, here we have Brian Boitano, a gay man who is officially representing the United States at the Sochi opening ceremonies and no objections? No demands that Boitano speak out against the law? Why is he being given such a free pass?
Tackle
@ncman: You wrote, “coming out for a public figure/celebrity such as Brian means much more than telling your friends, family and loved ones. It means making a public statement”. Really?? Where did that come from, and who made that rule as the proper way for a public figure/celebrity to be out? Was there a vote taken?
And there are many LGBTQ people who would disagree with you on that. And many who would probably agree with you. So who is right?? And what right does “anyone” have to tell someone, celebrity or not that you “must” come out in a certain way?
Cam
@modernfamilyfan:
The difference being Weir was dismissive, tried to minimize Russias behavior and attacked the idea of doing anything that could harm Russia.
Boitano is part of a group going over at the behest of a president who has publicly spoken out against Russias actions and purposely is sending a group of gay folks in the delegation.
I love the few sad straggling fans of Weir that keep coming on trying to defend him on here.
ncman
@Tackle: The point of a celebrity coming out is to make a difference in the lives of other members of the LGBT community. It’s similar to celebrities who have battled and won against cancer or drugs who come out and tell their stories to help others who may be in similar situations. If no one outside Brian’s family and friends knew he was gay, how does that help anyone else?
Tackle
@ncman: I’m gonna respectully disagree with you. There are many reasons why one may choose to come out or stay in the closet. And one of the big reasons I hear celebrities say why they choose to come out was to free themselves. Choosing not to live a lie any longer. The other stuff about helping gays, often times comes later.
And back to Brian. You ask, “if no one outside Brian’s family and friends knew he was gay, how does that help anyone else.”
Well I will ask, how does it hurt anyone else? And most gay youths are not really checking for a 50yr-old skater who won gold 25yrs ago. And if someone had a loving,nurturing, supportive upbringing, they will not need “anyone” coming out to help them feel good about themselves.
ncman
You claimed that Brian came “out” 20 years ago at age 30 when he would have been very relevant. And, many in the LGBT community do not have loving, nurturing, supportive upbringing which is why having positive role models highlighted in the media is a good thing.