Former NFL star Carl Nassib has revealed why he felt he had to come out as gay publicly.
The one-time defensive end for the Cleveland Browns, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Las Vegas Raiders came out on Instagram in 2021, becoming the first active NFL player to do so. He pledged to donate $100,000 (approximately £72,500 at the time) to LGBTQ+ youth suicide-prevention charity, The Trevor Project.
Appearing recently on The Pivot Podcast, Nassib said he made the decision despite there being a chance it would hurt his career.
“I knew I wanted to do it for years before that,” he said, adding that there were “a few catalysts” that pushed him on.
The first was that his uncle Bill, who was also gay and whom he described as a “touchpoint”, had died from cancer in 2019. Nassib was already out to some of his immediate family and close friends by then. “I saw him on his deathbed. He was in really bad shape and I came out to him. We were from a huge family, 44 first cousins, and he was the only gay person in the family.
“When I came out to him, he and his husband were there, and he [said]: ‘This is the biggest weight off of my chest, I’m not the only one’.”
Nassib realised that there were “probably so many people out there that [who] are going to feel that same way”, and he “felt really charged after that” to come out in public. He lamented not living in a “perfect world” where he could have done so earlier and been his uncle’s “back up” and “been there for him a lot more than I was”.
He had planned to come out a little sooner but between the COVID-19 pandemic and the death of George Floyd in 2020, he “read the room” and decided to wait a little longer.
Signing a “great contract” with the Raiders, which came with “a bunch of guaranteed money”, also helped him make the decision, and he realised: “Damn, now they can’t touch me.”
Nassib announced his retirement from the game in September 1993, after a short second stint with Tampa Bay. You can watch his full interview below:
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