After years of fighting off rumors about his sexuality, injured Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney has finally just faxed the following message to select football outlets, coming out and telling the world he is gay.
“Today is my day, this is my time, and this is my moment. These years in silence and reflection made me stronger and reminded me that acceptance has to come from within and that this kind of truth gives me the power to conquer emotions I didn’t even know existed … I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am,” he wrote.
“What will happen from now on? It doesn’t matter. I can only focus on what’s happening to me in this moment. The word ‘happiness’ takes on a new meaning for me as of today. It has been a very intense process. Every word that I write in this letter is born out of love, acceptance, detachment and real contentment. Writing this is a solid step towards my inner peace and vital part of my evolution,” Rooney continues.
Why is Wayne Rooney coming out now? He admits he never talked about his sexuality because people advised him not to. “Many people told me: ‘Wayne it’s not important,’ ‘it’s not worth it,’ ‘all the years you’ve worked and everything you’ve built will collapse,’ ‘many people in the world are not ready to accept your truth, your reality, your nature.’ Because all this advice came from people who I love dearly, I decided to move on with my life not sharing with the world my entire truth. Allowing myself to be seduced by fear and insecurity became a self-fulfilling prophecy of sabotage. Today I take full responsibility for my decisions and my actions,” he adds.
The prolific striker is married to Coleen Rooney and has a son, who was born via a surrogate (Chelsea’s John Terry) in November 2009. This raised tabloid rumors about his sexuality, but he tried to avoid commenting on the topic until now.
“This is just what I need especially now that I am the father of a beautiful boy that is so full of light and who with his outlook teaches me new things every day. To keep living as I did up until today would be to indirectly diminish the glow that my son was born with. Enough is enough. This has to change. This was not supposed to happen 5 or 10 years ago, it is supposed to happen now,” Rooney says.
Look for our reaction to come shortly as more details are revealed on this developing story.