{"id":29209,"date":"2020-11-01T23:52:35","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T07:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=29209"},"modified":"2020-11-01T23:54:25","modified_gmt":"2020-11-02T07:54:25","slug":"olympic-gymnast-comes-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2020\/11\/01\/olympic-gymnast-comes-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Out Olympic Gymnast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Way back in 2012, <strong>Reed <\/strong>in Chicago sent in an <strong><em>Ask Billy<\/em><\/strong> question about <em>Olympic <\/em>gymnast <strong>Danell Leyva<\/strong>.&nbsp; At the time, some nude photos circulated which were allegedly texted to a girl he was trying to hook up with.&nbsp; Fast forward eight years and Danell has come out\u2026on <em>National Coming Out Day<\/em>: \u201cFor a long time I\u2019ve known that I wasn\u2019t straight.&nbsp; But because of some very personal reasons, I always rejected that side of me.&nbsp; Earlier this year I finally understood that I\u2019m bi\/pan (still trying to figure that one out).\u201d&nbsp; He adds, \u201cI also realized that, as of now at least, I\u2019m not attracted to cis men.\u201d&nbsp; That\u2019s OK \u2013 baby steps, Danell.&nbsp; And, yes, before you ask, I\u2019ll post the photos again on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.BillyMasters.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong><u>BillyMasters.com<\/u><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/colorbar1.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-568\" src=\"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/colorbar1.gif\" alt=\"colorbar1\" width=\"500\" height=\"1\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In lieu of a new <strong><em>Ask Billy<\/em><\/strong> question, I want to take a moment to remember my friend <strong>Nikki McKibbin<\/strong>.&nbsp; You knew her as the scrappy contestant on season one of <strong><em>American Idol<\/em><\/strong> who came in third.&nbsp; We did several gay pride festivals together, and she was a hoot.&nbsp; She was a gal just waiting for a break.&nbsp; She got a few, but they never quite panned out the way she hoped.&nbsp; After a pretty hard life battling various addictions, she had an aneurysm last week and was brain-dead immediately.&nbsp; In accordance with her wishes, she was kept alive on machines for three days to arrange distribution of her organs.&nbsp; Till the end, she was a very special, giving person.&nbsp; Rest in peace, Nikk!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Way back in 2012, Reed in Chicago sent in an Ask Billy question about Olympic gymnast Danell Leyva.&nbsp; At the time, some nude photos circulated which were allegedly texted to a girl he was trying to hook up with.&nbsp; Fast forward eight years and Danell has come out\u2026on National Coming Out Day: \u201cFor a long<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29209"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29211,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29209\/revisions\/29211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}