“I couldn’t have done this [shoot] while I was in the closet.”
Adam Rippon has become the latest athlete to pose for ESPN magazine’s annual Body Issue.
The 28-year-old skater had a frank discussion about his coming out experience, body issues and expressed dissatisfaction with being known as “Gay Olympian Adam Rippon.”
“I hope the next out Olympians are just Olympians,” he revealed. “I hope the focus isn’t on them being out but on their incredible stories and all the work it took to be there.”
He added: “For a while, I was trying to be as thin as possible. But what I was doing wasn’t right. I was starving myself, because I was trying to be as lean as some of my counterparts 10 years younger than me.
“Eventually I worked with a nutritionist at the Olympic training center. I went in and said: “I don’t have an eating disorder, but I have a problem.””
Adam was also shocked with how many people contacted him, and told him “they were struggling with being themselves”.
“I went through that personal struggle and got to a point where I was like, “F— it. I’m just going to be me and not worry about it,”” he explained. “I am glad I was able to represent a person who was really unabashedly himself.”
Watch Adam in the shoot below, and read his exclusive interview here.
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