Ian Thorpe, the Australian Olympic
swimmer nicknamed the Thorpedo and Thorpey, has come out gay.
According to The
Sydney Morning Herald, Thorpe will announce for the first
time publicly that he's gay during an interview with Sir Michael
Parkinson to be broadcast Sunday night on Australia's Channel TEN.
In a promo for the “no limits”
interview, Parkinson is seen asking Thorpe about his sexuality.
“You've always said that you're not
gay. Is all of that true?” Parkinson asks.
The question was criticized on social
media as irrelevant.
“Please can someone tell me what
difference it makes to ANYTHING if Ian Thorpe is gay?”
@Steph_Walker82 asked.
“Channel Ten's Ian Thorpe interview
to reveal many things you never knew you didn't care about,”
messaged @TitusOReily.
The 31-year-old Thorpe has won five
Olympic gold medals, the most won by any Australian. He was also the
most successful athlete to compete at the 2000 Summer Olympics.
Thorpe denied rumors he's gay in his
autobiography This Is Me.
“For the record, I am not gay and all
my sexual experiences have been straight. I'm attracted to women, I
love children and aspire to have a family one day … I know what
it's like to grow up and be told what your sexuality is, then
realising that it's not the full reality. I was accused of being gay
before I knew who I was,” he wrote.
In interviews to promote the book,
Thorpe added that the persistent rumors question his integrity.
“Yeah, look, the thing that I find
hurtful about it is that people are questioning kind of my integrity
and what I say,” said Thorpe. “That's the only part that I find
hurtful. Like is that, you know, this is something that I would be
embarrassed about, that I would hide or whatever else.”
“I don't want to offend anyone that,
you know, whether they're people [who] have friends that are gay or
whatever else, I don't want to offend them by … getting angry about
it, getting frustrated about it. The only part that I'm frustrated
with is that people think that I'm lying,” he added.