Dame Kelly Holmes has told the Loose Women that following her mother's death in 2018, she had to "change" the way she handled her sexuality. The Olympic medalist, 52, came out as gay earlier this week and was appearing on the lunchtime show ahead of her documentary, Being Me, airing on ITV on Sunday (June 26).
Opening up about the last few days, Kelly said that her "Mum would be so proud" of her. She added that she "didn't want [her] friends and family at [her] funeral saying that [she] couldn't live her life". In what has been a whirlwind week, the Olympic Gold medalist said that she “felt like she’d been in a bit of a bubble,” following her appearance on This Morning earlier in the week. Her decision to come out in her fifties was partly due to the fact that she had been living in 'silence' for 34 years.
Kelly described how she thought that young people now “lived freely because people have fought for [them]”. Speaking about meeting 'someone' in the army and then subsequently telling her family of her sexuality at 27, Kelly stated that “assumption is not freeing” and although people thought she might be gay, she didn’t tell anyone in sport about her sexuality.
