While appearing on Desert Island Discs, Tom Daley opened up about how his sexuality made him feel “inferior.”
In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs show, Olympian Tom Daley opened up about how his sexuality caused him to feel “inferior” growing up. Talking to host Lauren Laverne, Daley said that he felt “less than” his rivals as it wasn’t “socially acceptable to like boys and girls.”
Daley then revealed that those same feelings also empowered him, saying: “To this day, those feelings of feeling less than and feeling different, have been the real things that have given me the power and strength to be able to succeed.”
Daley added that because of how he felt he aspired to prove that he was “something” so that when he came out, people wouldn’t be disappointed in him.
Related | Watch Tom Daley Take Willam Diving in Full Drag
Daley also talked about becoming a father. “If you had asked me last year, it was all about ‘I need to win a gold medal,’” he told Laverne. “You know what, there are bigger things than Olympic gold medals. My Olympic gold medal is Robbie.”
Earlier this year, Daley told The Guardian he was becoming a more vocal LGBTQ rights activist. “I got to go to the [2018] games with my grandad, grandma, my mother, and Lance, and we sat down for lunch.”
“I looked at Lance and thought: ‘How lucky am I to be able to be married to the person I love without any worry about ramifications, to be able to represent my country at a sport I love to do, and not have to worry about getting thrown in jail?’”
Related | Tom Daley Says He Felt ‘Too Unsafe’ to Compete in Russia
He continued: “I thought, if I can try and shine a light on that, that’s the way to change people’s hearts, that’s the way to change their minds, and change laws, and change the way people think about everything.”
