Sam: ‘I came out so I could be comfortable with boyfriend’

NFL rising star Michael Sam has revealed that he came out as gay so he didn’t have to hide his relationship with his boyfriend any longer.

Sam, 24, came out publicly in February, and following his selection by the St Louis Rams NFL team in May, he will become only the second out gay athlete to compete in any of North America’s four major professional sports leagues – football, baseball, basketball and hockey – after basketball player Jason Collins was selected for the NBA earlier this year.

Sam received a wave of criticism in May, when he celebrated being drafted into the NFL by kissing his boyfriend, Vito Cammisano, live on US daytime television, and in a new interview with Out magazine, he has spoken candidly about their relationship – revealing that the couple first got together while on a night out with a friend.

“I could see he was interested,” Sam recalled. “I bought him a couple of drinks, got us tipsy. Toward the end of the night, I put my arm around him, and it was over.”

Sam was still in the closet when he started dating Cammisano, and went on to reveal that the couple broke up at one point because of the stress of trying to keep his sexuality a secret.

“Everyone knew Vito was gay, so we couldn’t even be seen together. There was a lot of climbing out of windows,” Sam said.

“Vito was really the person who showed me I had to do it,” Sam said of making the decision to come out. “I wanted us to be comfortable.”

After Michael Sam came out, Oprah Winfrey’s US cable network OWN announced plans to make a documentary series about him – but the series has since been postponed – click here to find out more.