Tom Daley: It was love at first sight when I met my boyfriend
The British Olympic diving star Tom Daley has said that it was “love at first sight” when he met his boyfriend, although he has not confirmed who that is, despite speculation by media outlets including, in error, PinkNews.
Daley told Jonathan Ross in an interview to be broadcast on ITV:
“It really was love at first sight, I’d never felt like anything like it before. We were at a party and I hadn’t even spoken to him all night.
“I didn’t know what to do or if he was gay at first. I made the first move, I typed ‘call me’ in his notes with a smiley face on this phone and the next day he texted.
“He makes me feel safe and happy, right now I couldn’t be happier.”
“I’d never felt the feeling of love, it happened so quickly, I was completely overwhelmed by it to the point I can’t get him out of my head all the time. I’ve never had it before where I love someone and they love me just as much.”
He added: “To be honest, everything is all pretty new and I don’t see any point in putting a label on it – gay, bi or straight.”
Daley told Ross : “It felt like it was my dirty little secret, like I had chains round me and I couldn’t say anything and I couldn’t be who I wanted to be. I felt so alone and trapped in who I was.”
Daley – who was a mentor on ITV celebrity diving show Splash! earlier this year – said his new partner helped him rekindle his interest in training competitively once again.
He said: “He saved me from not wanting to dive anymore. After the Olympics I was down in the dumps, as it’s such a hard way to get back into everything, but he gave me the extra motivation and made me work harder and that is exactly what I need.”
The bronze winning diver explained that he told his family about the relationship. “They are all so supportive of me… but to have all the support from the public as well has just been a bonus and, honestly, it makes me smile just thinking about it.”
“My family will always want to look out for me and not want me to get hurt but they were worried what the reaction would be like in case people would be horrible to me in the streets. Now that it’s all happened they couldn’t be happier, the support of the public has been an added bonus, it makes me smile to think about it – my life at the moment is perfect.”
Daley said that he has received messages from hundreds of teenagers who took the decision to come out after his YouTube video was posted. “The reaction has been 100 times better than I thought it would be. I know some people can be a bit negative about it but overall it has just been amazing. I was absolutely terrified about doing this as it was so unknown but for people to be so supportive about it, it has been amazing.”
The full interview will be broadcast on the Jonathan Ross Show on ITV on Saturday at 10.45pm.
From PinkNews Deputy Editor Joseph Patrick McCormick : – A previous version of this story named the person Tom Daley is speculated to be in a relationship with. We believed that Daley had confirmed this in interview, as it appeared in early reports in daily newspapers, however on receiving the transcript of the ITV interview, it became evident that he did not.
The story, which I would point out was not published by myself, went against the editorial we published yesterday saying that PinkNews would not publish speculation about Daley’s relationship until he spoke himself. We genuinely intended, and still do, to stick to that, and we followed the lead of other outlets which on this occasion presented speculation as fact. For this reason, the original article has been removed from the PinkNews website.
