Dana White, the president of the
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), is urging gay fighters to be
open about their sexuality.
“I'll tell you right now, if there
was a gay fighter in the UFC, I wish he would come out,” White said
Thursday in Las Vegas, USA Today reported. “I could care
less if there's a gay fighter I the UFC. There probably is and
there's probably more than one.”
White was responding to criticism that
the UFC is an anti-gay, anti-women organization.
During a 2008 videotapped interview
with Peace
Magazine, White jokingly dismissed an off-camera suggestion
that his favorite movie was Titanic. “Hey, you're the one
with the fucking gay-colored phone. Don't be fucking with me,” he
said.
The next year, White used harsh
language in an
angry video rant against reporter Loretta Hunt: “Whoever gave
you that quote is a pussy and a fucking faggot.”
An online
petition by the Culinary Workers Union of Las Vegas calls on Fox to
drop the UFC because the “UFC is not suitable for prime time on
network TV.”
“If you guys look at all the stuff
that I've said over the last 10 years – some of it stupid, some of
it whatever – that's the one that bothers me,” White said.
“That's the one that bothers me – the fact that these losers from
the Culinary Union can go out and say that I'm a homophobe and things
like that – because it's the furthest thing from the truth.”