CULTURE: Inside Johnny Weir’s new book!

Johnny Weir is asked by People why he decided to come out now. Instead of saying the obvious – that he has a memoir (Welcome to My World) to promote, Johnny says: “I’ve never felt the need before. Why come out of the closet when you’ve never really lived in one? But I didn’t want a reporter to do it for me.”

The magazine features excerpts from the book and I’m plucked out some of the parts I found to be the most interesting.

He writes: By puberty, I knew I was gay. But I didn’t worry about it much. As a serious skater, I was way too busy. Then, when I was 16, I had my first kiss with a boy.

He came out to his mother at 18 and waited until one night after my dad had gone to sleep (my dad is a cool guy but homosexuality is completely foreign to him and not something I was ready to throw in his face).

“Mom, adult to adult, I need to tell you something. I’m gay.” Suddenly it felt like I was sitting in the room with a stranger, and this was my mom, my best friend. She started to cry. I wasn’t angry. No mother wants to hear her son say he’s gay. Those two words rip the picture of a daughter-in-law and grandchildren into pieces. I felt sorry for my mom and wanted her to know everything was going to be all right.

“I really don’t care Johnny, as long as I know that you are happy,” she said.

Suddenly I felt this great freedom. It’s not an issue for the rest of my family and they don’t ask any questions which I consider a blessing.

Johnny had a serious relationship with another skater which they kept quiet. He writes:

Although everyone thinks of figure skating as the gayest sport in the universe, those who wield power within it rail against that image. Skaters are supposed to represent a sanitized ideal, like a figurine atop a child’s birthday cake. The result is that homosexual skaters are terrified of showing any signs of their sexual orientation since the judges will hold it against them. One had to act like a man. On skates and in sparkles.

On being pressured to come out publicly Johnny writes: All the gay websites couldn’t figure out why I was such a jerk that I wouldn’t talk about it. A lot of gays got downright angry about my silence. But pressure is the last thing that would make me want to “join” a community.

My being gay is the smallest part of what makes me me. Yes, I have some stereotypical gay traits (I love flowers, fashion and I’m an ice skater for Christ’s sake). But I also have traits stereotypical of a Jewish mother (I’ll feed anyone I can get my hands on) and a regular ol’ rural male (I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty). The massive backlash against me in the gay community only made me dig my “closeted” heels in further.”