NFL’s first openly gay player Carl Nassib reveals he’s now dating ‘an awesome guy’

He however didn’t reveal the identity of his partner

Carl Nassib, NFL’s first openly gay active player, has revealed that he is dating someone “awesome.”

In his first official interview since coming out in June, Nassib said: “I met an awesome guy. He’s the best.” But the football player refused to reveal his partner’s identity.

Nassib said he realised that he identified as a gay man only four years ago. He also told the hosts of Blue Wire’s Comeback Stories podcast that he wanted to establish himself in the National Football League before coming out.

Speaking about his single life, he told the hosts he felt like there was something missing.

“I was really jealous of people who went through life as being somebody else’s number one priority,” the 28-year-old said. “As you get older, everybody’s priorities shift … Late at night, you’re just like, ‘OK, am I anyone’s number one priority?’ And that’s just the one thing that I wanted. I just wanted to be someone’s number one priority and I couldn’t have that.”

He added: “But I got that now, so it’s good.”

Nassib said he had planned to come out publicly last year but had to delay the decision due to the pandemic.

“Coming out as gay is something that for a while I wanted to do and just wanted to wait for the right moment,” Nassib, a defensive lineman, said.

Nassib signed for the Las Vegas Raiders in 2020 on a three-year, $25mn free-agent deal, with $16.75mn of his money guaranteed.

He said: “I wanted to do it last year with the Raiders but 2020 was such a mess and we weren’t even allowed to hang out with each other outside of the building. I didn’t know anybody on the team. I didn’t really have a vibe for it, so I really didn’t feel comfortable enough to do it. I wanted to make sure that the guys I went to work with every single day were good dudes, were accepting dudes.”

Nassib added that he didn’t come out as gay to break barriers.

“I did it because I felt an obligation to the LGBTQ community to bring representation and bring visibility to a very, very popular entertainment business, to a very very popular industry that doesn’t have a lot of representation,” the footballer said.