Chelsea Clinton is paying tribute to late NBA star Jason Collins one day after his death.
“Heartbroken by the passing of my beloved friend Jason Collins,” Clinton, 46, wrote via X on Wednesday, May 13, alongside a throwback photo with Collins. “He was a trailblazer whose courage changed lives, and a kind, thoughtful friend who could always make me laugh. He will live in my heart forever.”
Collins, the first openly gay player in the NBA, died at age 47 after a battle with brain cancer, his family confirmed in a statement on Tuesday, May 12.
“We are heartbroken to share that Jason Collins, our beloved husband, son, brother and uncle, has died after a valiant fight with glioblastoma,” the statement to the NBA read. “Jason changed lives in unexpected ways and was an inspiration to all who knew him and to those who admired him from afar. We are grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers over the past eight months and for the exceptional medical care Jason received from his doctors and nurses. Our family will miss him dearly.”
More than a decade before his death, Collins was featured in Time magazine as one of the publication’s 100 most influential people of 2014. Clinton wrote the athlete’s endorsement.
“I met Jason Collins when we were freshmen at Stanford,” she shared at the time. “Not surprisingly, the first thing I noticed was his height. The second thing I noticed was his kindness off the court — and his fierceness on it. Kindness to his friends, his family and fans. Fierceness in his drive to win. Jason has always been focused on others, on what’s right for those he loves, and on helping those whose jersey is the same as his.”
Collins played basketball professionally for 13 years, joining the New Jersey Newts, Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves, Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics, Washington Wizards and Brooklyn Nets throughout his career. One year before his retirement in 2014, he publicly came out as gay in a Sports Illustrated cover story.
Clinton continued in her endorsement, “When Jason called to talk about his forthcoming Sports Illustrated cover story, ‘The Gay Athlete,’ I realized at some point that I wasn’t surprised we were having the conversation we were. Not because I knew what we were going to talk about when I answered the phone. Rather, because it made eminent sense that it would be Jason becoming the first openly gay, still active pro athlete in a major U.S. sports league.”
The author concluded by calling Collins a “leader and an inspiration.”
Collins made headlines in September 2025 when he announced that he was undergoing treatment for a brain tumor. Three months later, he revealed that he was battling Stage IV glioblastoma — “one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer,” he shared in an essay for ESPN.
“It came on incredibly fast,” he wrote in the December 2025 piece, adding that he planned to fight the disease as much as possible.
“We aren’t going to sit back and let this cancer kill me without giving it a hell of a fight,” Collins added. “We’re going to try to hit it first, in ways it’s never been hit: with radiation and chemotherapy and immunotherapy that’s still being studied but offers the most promising frontier of cancer treatment for this type of cancer. The average prognosis is only 11 to 14 months. If that’s all the time I have left, I’d rather spend it trying a course of treatment that might one day be a new standard of care for everyone.”
