Buccaneers’ Carl Nassib, First Openly Gay NFL Star, Is ‘Not Hiding’ – PEOPLE

NFL star Carl Nassib is speaking candidly in a new interview about the impact of being the first openly gay active player in the league.

The 29-year-old Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker — who came out publicly in June 2021 — talked to Men’s Health for their November cover story about his first year since coming out. In his first game, Nassib had a strip sack that helped his team (then the Las Vegas Raiders) to a week one win. But he’s acutely aware of how differently his season could have gone.

“Imagine I ruined it for everyone?” he said. “Like, I let up a touchdown or something. And people were like, ‘Go back in the closet!’ That could have been horrible.”

The defensive end, who has since signed with Tampa Bay, added: “I felt really lucky that I could be on a big stage and, like, make a good play while representing the community. To be the first out player in a game and then to win.”

“That’s sick, that’s f—ing cool. But I go out with the same mentality every game, just trying to beat the s— out of the team across from me. My whole thing is, I’m a football player who is gay. I don’t think that straight players are thinking, ‘Oh, I’m straight and I’m playing this game.'”

Nassib, who played five seasons in the NFL before coming out, said he worried that his sexuality would be all people could focus on.

“When I came out, it was like, ‘This is gonna f—ing suck.’ Because all anyone’s gonna remember about me is that I’m gay,” he said of his thinking at the time.

But Nassib emphasized that even if others are stuck on his sexuality, he’s not.

“I was born this way. I haven’t worked for it. That’s why it’s easy for me. It’s not even on my mind. I don’t choose every day to be gay. I choose to work hard and be a better person than I was yesterday. Doing interviews like this is not my favorite thing. I don’t want to ever feel like, ‘Oh, I’m hiding from something.’ I’m not hiding from s—.”

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And in this rare interview — only his second since coming out — Nassib said the only reason he’s talking about being gay is to continue supporting the Trevor Project, a nonprofit aimed at helping LGBTQ youth with suicide prevention and crisis counseling.

“It crushed me to hear the stats on young LGBTQ kids and how they’re nearly five times more likely to attempt suicide” than their peers, he said. “And that if they just have one accepting adult — just one person to say, like, ‘Hey, I got your back’ — it cuts their chances of hurting themselves by 40 percent.”

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