Olympic Swimming Star Ian Thorpe Comes Out As Gay

Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe, whose five-medal performance at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney captivated his country, has revealed in an Australian television interview that he is gay.

Thorpe, a two-time Olympian and a nine-time Olympic medalist, made the acknowledgment in an interview with Michael Parkinson, with whom he shares a manager, to be broadcast tonight.

During the compelling hour and a half long interview, Thorpe also spoke about his battle with depression, his struggle with fame and his future ambitions. 

But it was Parkinson's highly-anticipated question that kept viewers waiting.'You've always said that you're not gay. Is all of that true?' Parkinson asked.

'I've thought about this for a long time,' Thorpe said.

'I'm not straight. And this is only something that very recently - in the past two weeks - I've been comfortable telling the closest people around me exactly that.'

The champion swimmer was first asked about his sexuality at the age of 16 and acknowledged he had lied about it for some time.

'I didn't know at the stage, I was too young,' he said.

'I didn't accept it in myself. I didn't want to be gay. I was still gay at the end of the day.

'Yes, I lied about it. I'm comfortable saying I'm a gay man.'

But it was the fear of letting down or hurting his loved ones - and his nation - that held him back from revealing the truth.

'

My close friends are going to be accused of being my lover,' he said.

'It's happened before. It happened in 2009. My housemate who lived with me - I was on a vocation in Brazil, there was a photo, instantly people said: 'this is my lover'. He was my housemate, one of my best friends, and he was drawn into this. And I loathed that because I tried to protect everyone from it.

'

Part of me didn't know if Australia wanted its champion to be gay. But I'm telling the world that I am.'

Since coming out, Thorpe wishes he had done so earlier.

'My parents told me that they love me and that they support me,' he said.

'I'm a little bit ashamed that I didn't come out earlier. That I didn't have the strength to do it, that I didn't have the courage to break that lie. I don't want that struggle to be so hard for other people.'

 Thorpe (31), a public figure since he burst onto the international scene at the 1997 Pan Pacific Championships as a 14-year-old, has been treated recently for depression and alcohol abuse.

In recent years, Thorpe has reportedly had financial setbacks.

In his memoir, “This Is Me,” published in 2012, Thorpe addressed his depression, which dates to his teens, and denied longstanding rumours that he was gay, writing that he dated only women and hoped to marry and have children.

Thorpe retired in 2006, when he was 24.