As his life and trial starts to get reamped up by the new Ryan Murphy Hulu series, the specualitation around Aaron Hernandez’s sexuality is floating around again. Nearly a decade after his trial, the show seems to implicate that the New England Patriots tight end might have been gay.
The body of semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd was discovered in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Massachusetts. All suspicions led to Aaron Hernandez and he was arrested at his home and charged with first-degree murder. The Patriots wasted no time in cutting ties with Hernandez. Within hours of his arrest, the team released him, effectively ending his NFL career. He pleaded not guilty and on April 19, 2017, he was found dead in his prison cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center.
In American Sports Story, the first two episodes lean into the theory that Aaron was gay in his adolescence. Though there wasn’t a direct motive revealed during the case, many authorities believed that Odin Lloyd may have been aware of Hernandez’s sexuality.
Was Aaron Hernandez gay in real life?
There’s still some uncertainty about what Aaron’s sexuality was even after his death. His fiancé Shayana Jenkins-Hernandez wrote in the forward of attorney Jose Baez’s book Unnecessary Roughness, “There has been much speculation about Aaron’s sexuality since his death. I can say this: Aaron was very much a man to me. I saw no indication that he was gay or homosexual.”
She also made a statement in an interview with ABC News after the release of the Netflix series Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez which speculated about his sexuality during the case. “You can’t describe someone’s sexuality without them being here,” she says. “Although I’ve had a child with Aaron, I still can’t tell you how he was feeling inside. No one can.”
She adds, “If he did feel that way, or if he felt the urge, I wish that I was told. I wish he would’ve told me because I would not have loved him any differently. I would’ve understood. It’s not shameful and I don’t think anybody should feel shameful of who they are inside, regardless of who they love. I think it’s a beautiful thing. I just wish I was able to tell him that.”
His brother DJ “Jonathan” Hernandez talked to Dr. Oz about how his brother might have potentially came out as gay to his mother before his suicide. “He’s like, ‘Mom, you’re going die never knowing your son,’” he recounted. “Then all of a sudden they have this conversation, and they’re both flooded with tears across from each other.”
A member of Aaron’s defense team George Leontire also claimed that the football player was gay. “This man clearly was gay,” the lawyer, who is also gay, said. “Acknowledged. Acknowledged the immense pain that it caused him. I think that he also came out of a culture that was so negative about gay people that he exhibited some self-hatred.”
Days before his death, investigative journalist Michelle McPhee joked with friends Kirk Minihane and Gerry Callahan on the radio show that Aaron was “tight end on and off the field,” adding, “then he became a wide receiver.” The trio riffed on jokes about his sexuality, and Michelly McPhee wrote a subsequent piece on Newsweek, titled “Aaron Hernandez’s Sex Life Probed as Murder Motive” where she denotes that he allegedly had a relationship with a male former high school classmate and that his suicide note was written to his prison boyfriend (which was debunked, since it was written to his attorney).
American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez is available to stream on Hulu and airs on FX on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, help is available. Call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free and confidential counseling.
