Boxing champ Evander Holyfield has
compared being gay to a physical handicap that can be fixed.
The 51-year-old Holyfield is a
contestant on the reality show Celebrity Big Brother UK.
Lounging in bed with Apprentice UK
star Luisa Zissman, the pair got on the topic of gay boxers. After
Holyfield said that gay boxers had to remain closeted, Zissman
offered: “I think it's good to be open like that. It's normal.”
“What would be good about it?”
Holyfield
asked. “That ain't normal. It is a choice, come on, that
ain't the way nobody was made.”
“If you were born and your leg were
turned this way, what do you do? You go to the doctor and get it
fixed back, right?”
“It's not about being fixed,”
Zissman responded. “That's just the way that you are.”
“All I'm trying to say, you know
handicap people are born, you can't say because they are born that
way you can't fix them,” Holyfield said.
In the show's confessional room, a
producer warned Holyfield that Big Brother “does not
tolerate the use of offensive language.”
“Yeah, I understand why,” Holyfield
responded. “I forgot about the thing. I was just telling her my
opinion. But it's not like I was gonna mention it to anybody else.
That was just our conversation.”
Response on Twitter was swift, with
many viewers calling for Holyfield to be tossed out from the house.
“why has Evander Holyfield not been
thrown out [of] the house!? Disgusting behaviour” a viewer
messaged.
“Shame,” wrote Boy George, “I had
such admiration for Mr Evander Holyfield, he seemed dignified and I
was sure he was a cool, smart, giant!”