NJPW star Fred Rosser was the latest guest on Insight With Chris Van Vilet to discuss all things pro-wrestling, including Rosser’s recalling when he came out as gay during his time in WWE, and how supported he felt by many in the company during that time. Highlights from the interview are below.
On coming out to his immediate family:
“I came out to them 2 years before I came out publicly to the world. I came out to my immediate family, but I was nervous about my grandfather and what he would think. I said to my mom, because he saw it on the news ‘Mom, what did pop say about it?’ He said ‘I don’t give a damn if he’s green, yellow, brown, blue, that’s my grandson and I love him.’ We don’t talk about it but anytime that I am home, he’ll be like ‘Come on sonny. Let’s hit the town and find some chicks!’ I’m like ‘[sighs] Alright pop, let’s go.’ He knows, but he’s just joking like that.”
On coming out publicly during an interview with TMZ in 2013:
“I tell people all the time that you need that support system, the sky’s the limit. There are many reasons why I wanted to come out publicly. I wanted to bring my boyfriend with me to red carpets at the time, which I did. Also I wanted to bring him backstage to the masculine world of professional wrestling, and I was able to do that. I hear the wrestlers talk about their relationship problems and I can be sassy. I can be like ‘mmm, honey thank goodness I am gay.’ I can just be me, before I wouldn’t be able to do that, I’d be very tough. But now I can just be me, and that is very important to me. When you come out as an athlete you have a duty to instill confidence into our youth and to lead by example. So that’s why I am always representing.”
The support he received from the WWE roster after he came out:
“They didn’t know, so I had to come out again. I remember that I had to do a Be A Star the next day. I told Stephanie McMahon that I can’t do it, I can’t be in front of a crowd because of that guilt feeling and that fear of the unknown. The next day when the news dropped, I remember Mark Henry being the first guy to text me. He said ‘Hey man, come down to the hotel.’ This was before SummerSlam. ‘Yeah come down to the green room.’ I met in the green room and he said ‘man, how come you didn’t tell me?’ I said that I was just fearful, Mark responds by telling me that he has cousins that are gay. From then on, me and Mark were just tight. We were tight with guys like Randy Orton and CM Punk. Those guys made it a lot easier for me to walk into a locker room.”