Olympians and friends Adam Rippon and Gus Kenworthy are on the cover of Out magazine’s May 2018 issue showing off their shirtless bodies.
Here’s what they had to share with the mag…
Gus, on being in the closet: “I didn’t have the best Olympics experience first time around in Sochi. I felt like a fraud. I wasn’t being myself. I had a boyfriend at the time that I wasn’t telling anybody about; and I wasn’t out to my parents. And then post-games every interviewer asked me, ‘Who’s your celebrity crush? What’s your type of girl? What’s your ideal date?’ And I was just lying. And I hated myself for it. So to be in Pyongchang, and get to walk into this huge stadium as myself, as an out gay man, and do it alongside Adam was the biggest, best moment of my entire life. And that was why it was so important for me to find him. Because I felt like we had the same story, and I wanted to share the opening ceremony moment with him. It was the highlight of my entire games in my head
Adam, on hate mail: “I would always get a pit in my stomach every time there were somebody on social media with an American flag in their name. The most consistent message I got was, ‘I hope you fail, I hope you fall; I’ve never cheered against someone in my entire life.’ That somebody could go out of their way to say they’re proud of their country and that they love it, and they’re a patriot, and then turn around and taunt their athletes is incredibly disrespectful. They’re the opposite of a patriot. You don’t represent America. You represent you and your family and your small minded whatever. That’s not American.”
For more from Adam and Gus, visit Out.com.