Spoiler alert: This story contains details about plot twists in Heated Rivalry.
Gus Kenworthy sees a lot of himself in the mega-viral hockey romance hit Heated Rivalry. And not just because he’s gay and happens to also participate in a cold weather sport.
As the HBO Max series continues to heat up a brutal winter where the polar vortex — and the chilling nightly news out of Minneapolis — have inspired a lot of people to hunker down and stay inside to binge the series chronicling the unlikely romance between Canadian Shane Hollander (played by Hudson Williams) and his Russian rival, Ilya Rozanov (played by Connor Storrie), Kenworthy told the New Yorker that he has his own Heated story to tell.
“I actually wrote a message to [series creator Jacob Tierney] because I was so moved, and didn’t expect to be. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen myself reflected onscreen like that, in such a substantial way,” said Kenworthy. “The parallels are kind of insane. I also had a secret relationship, with these clandestine meetings and hookups.”
In Kenworthy’s case, after helping to introduce freestyle skiing to Olympic competition in 2014, where he took silver in Sochi in slopestyle, the skier and photogenic media darling was briefly linked to Miley Cyrus. “And Miley Cyrus was my own Rose, this famous person that I was suddenly linked to, and as much as I kind of wanted it — because that’s the person you would want to be with if you’re straight, someone successful and beautiful and talented — it’s not the same as when you’re with a guy.”
In case you haven’t been drawn in to the six-episode series yet, Kenworthy is referencing Hollander’s brief fling with actress Rose Landry (Sophie Nélisse), which ends when Landry susses out that the hockey hunk is possibly more interested in her gay BFF than her.
Kenworthy, 34, who is gearing up to make his comeback at next month’s Winter Olympics in Cortina, Italy, came out in a 2015 ESPN The Magazine interview and, in another (kind of) parallel to a Rivalry plot point, made news in 2018 when NBC showed footage of him kissing his then-boyfriend Matthew Wilkas before a qualifying run at the Winter games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
That moment is similar to one in the show where another closeted hockey star, Scott Hunter (François Arnaud) shocks the world by kissing his secret boyfriend on center ice after winning a championship. “And then the Scott Hunter character — I really related to him,” Kenworthy said. “He wanted to be out, but really, just truly felt like he couldn’t be, because of his circumstances. That was me for so many years. I had the same yearning — to be in love, to be public, and to not have to hide.
In fact, Kenworthy said, like Hollander in the show, he was both closeted and had a boyfriend while competing in Sochi, where the U.S. team received media training about confronting Russia’s anti-LGBTQ policies with advice to stick to talking about just sports. “And I remember I was, like, ‘F–k that.’ I wasn’t out, and I wasn’t ready to be out, but I had a boyfriend. I had this dream that I was gonna land the winning run, ski up to him, and kiss him,” he said. “And then that was gonna be my coming out to everybody, and my silent protest. But it didn’t happen.”
Then, because his event took place on Feb. 13th that year, the next day, Valentine’s Day, he kept getting asked who his dream date or celebrity crush was, so instead of jokingly saying Jake Gyllenhaal, he “kind of panicked” and said Cyrus’ name instead. “[Teammates] Nick Goepper said Taylor Swift, and Joss Christensen said Emma Watson. And all these people tweeted it out,” Kenworthy recalled. “Neither of those girls responded to those guys, but Miley tweeted at me and followed me. It was surreal for a number of reasons, but I was also digging myself this deeper and deeper hole.”
Cyrus, a beloved gay icon, was a smart choice and seemed ready to play along with Kenworthy’s shell game. “I actually love her. But then there was some flirty texting, and I remember thinking, ‘What am I doing? I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to keep waking up and lying,'” he recalled thinking. At the time, Kenworthy wasn’t out to this family or his teammates, fearing the revelation could impact their performance.
Cyrus was super-supportive when Kenworthy came out, saying at the time that he was her “hero” and that she’d never been prouder to call him “my friend.” In a Facebook post at the time, the singer wrote that Kenworthy was “showing all of us what it means to be courageous and PROUD of who we are! You have won so much more than any medal … You have won FREEDOM!”
She added, “You are making it possible to shine light on the LGBTQ community in front of a whole new world! So much respect for you. I looooove looooove looooove you! Ughhhhhhhhh heart is fluttering, feels like a million little cocoons just busted open and I am filled up with butterflies.”
Kenworthy said he was retiring from skiing after the 2022 games in Beijing, focusing instead on acting in shows including the Will & Grace reboot, season nine of American Horror Story and being a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race. But last week it was announced he’d made his fourth Olympic roster.
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