GUS KENWORTHY’S TIME HAS COME
GUS KENWORTHY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPY. THE AMERICAN freestyle skier had just won a silver medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and now he was being interviewed by NBC the day after—Valentine’s Day, of all days—and asked to name his Valentine’s crush. This sort of make-cute gag shouldn’t send an athlete who earns his living doing twisting flips down mountains into a stomach-churning panic. But Kenworthy didn’t know what to say. His boyfriend? Real celebrity crushes like Zac Efron or Jake Gyllenhaal? None seemed like the best way to come out to the world.
Kenworthy settled on Miley Cyrus, which didn’t help. The NBC Olympics Twitter account broadcast his “crush” to the world. The pop star gushed on social media about a photo of Kenworthy holding four stray dogs—a rescue effort he had undertaken with the person he was afraid to identify as his boyfriend. Kenworthy soon became a celebrity heartthrob in his own right, cool enough to conquer a death-defying sport while cuddling puppies in his spare time. And it tore him up inside. “I mean,
