Olympian Greg Louganis recalls in a
recent interview that he was pushed back in the closet after the 1984
Summer Olympics.
Louganis dominated diving in the early
80s, winning gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics. He
publicly came out gay in 1994. In his best-selling memoir Breaking
the Surface, which was released in 1995, Louganis came out
HIV-positive. In 2013, he married Johnny Chaillot, a paralegal at a
law firm in Los Angeles.
Speaking to UK LGBT glossy Attitude,
Louganis explained how after coming out to friends and family in his
early 20s, he was pushed back in the closet after winning two gold
medals at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
“My agency pulled me aside and said,
'We want you to tone the gay thing down,'” Louganis
said. “And I was like, OK.”
“So, I was out and then I was back in
the closet, although friends and family knew.”
The 56-year-out Louganis explained how
he compartmentalized living in two worlds.
“The way I processed it in my mind
was … even though I'm a public figure, I'm also entitled to a
private life, and this is my private life,” Louganis said.