Tom Daley: 'Lonely Experience' as a Gay Athlete

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Tom Daley has described his time as a closeted athlete as a "very lonely experience".

The 31-year-old diver has been married to Hollywood director Dustin Lance Black, 5, since 2017 but went through some personal struggles before coming out to the world in his late teens. He's keen to help others in a similar predicament avoid ending up in a "dangerous" place.

He told Variety: "They don't know what to do, how to navigate, and obviously coming out in certain places is a very different experience than coming out in the UK or the US, so it can be quite dangerous.

"I always say to them that I can be there as a sounding board just because it is a very lonely experience."

Daley – whose father Robert passed away from a brain tumour in 2011 at the age of 40 – has sons Robbie, six, as well as two-year-old Phoenix with his husband. He admitted that losing his dad was one of the "most difficult" things he's ever had to go through, but he still draws inspiration from his father when it comes to his parenting style.

He said: "I model lots of my parenting and lots of the things that I do every day around what I learned from my dad. He was my biggest cheerleader. He was there for every training session, every competition, and he was a huge part of my life, day in, day out.

"Losing him was one of the most difficult things that I ever had to deal with.

"Yet I was dealing with that in a very public way in the UK. Looking back on all of that footage was quite challenging to watch because I felt really sorry for the younger Tom that I kind of was just carrying on and putting on a brave face, and I didn't ever want to bother anyone with how I was feeling because I didn't want to ever make anyone else feel uncomfortable."

The Olympian has discussed his life and career at length in the new documentary, Tom Daley: 1.6 Seconds, but admitted that he initially had reservations about speaking about such personal things on camera.



He said: "I wasn't sure about doing it initially. You know what? This is something that I would love to be able to then show my kids in the future and be able to be like, 'Look, this is what Papa did. This is the thing that Papa was doing day in, day out,' and the things that I did, and be able to get to know the relationship I had with my dad and all of that stuff."