Just in time for Gay Pride Month 2012, retired football star Wade Davis reveals that he's gay.
In a new interview with OutSports.com, the NFL player says he couldn't come out of the closet while playing for the Tennessee Titans, Washington Redskins and Seattle Seahawks.
One night out with his teammates to a strip club was understandably difficult as he tried to mask the truth, he recalls. "I can remember going out that night, going to a strip club, spending probably $1,500 just to make sure — if they even had a glimmer of thought that I was gay, that I wasn't," Davis says. "I was willing to make it rain just like the rest of them were."
Now retired from football, Davis has turned his focus to helping out at-risk gay youth and campaigning for President Barack Obama.
"I think subconsciously, I understood that being gay — the way I was raised — was wrong," Davis said in an interview with Amy K. Nelson of SB Nation. "And there was no way that my family, at least, in my mind, would accept me. And also that my football family would accept me. Just because of the perception of being gay meant that you were less masculine."