Ice-Skating Star Colin Grafton Is Ready To Talk About His Sexuality!!
Dancing On Ice star Colin Grafton has been skating since he was seven. He came out to his close circle at 24 and now, at the age of 32, he’s ready to talk about his sexuality with the world.
Grafton fell in love with the sport in 1998, but he tells PinkNews that it was difficult growing up in that era as a figure skater, let alone as a gay man.
Grafton began his skating years as a competitive athlete after being inspired by Olympian Tara Lipinski taking gold in Japan in 1998. He himself competed for Team USA for about five years, winning bronze at the Junior US championships in 2012.
After leaving competitive skating, Grafton found his stride in professional spaces competing in Dancing On Ice for two years running. “I feel very fortunate about the fact that I’ve been able to kind of dabble in so many different areas in the professional world, but tour life is quite hard, all the travel and being away for so long – so when Dancing on Ice came up, I jumped on it,” he tells PinkNews.
Grafton knows there’s been speculation about his sexual orientation, but he’s focused on his career and prefers to keep his personal life private. Although he never hid his sexuality, Grafton kept the details to his close circle until now, when he says he’s ready to be more open about who he is. He also recently appeared in London Gay Life magazine, signalling his newfound confidence.
“I told my closest friends, I told the people around me and I eventually told my parents. I was maybe 24 when all that happened. I know there’s a lot of curiosity about my sexual orientation and my love life, but I never actually came out to the public,” he shares.
“I was really nervous of doing that to myself,” he says. “It was like, OK, if I come out as gay then people are going to think I’m this or that, when in reality the human sexuality spectrum is so vast and it’s just one small part of the person you are.”
Feeling emboldened by the positive LGBTQIA+ representation, Grafton is ready to step into the light proudly and feel no hesitation announcing who he is.
“It’s been a long journey but now I am proud of myself and I’m proud of my sexual orientation and I want to let other people know that they should be proud of every part of themselves too.”
