I really hate seeing people’s secrets exposed. It feels filthy. It feels like you snuck into their room and read their diary or grabbed their phone and went through it before it locked. I’m an only child so privacy is really important to me and I don’t like people spilling my tea. And that’s why I’ve felt so sad this week seeing the private photos of Kerry Rhodes some dude named “Hollywood” who thinks he’s going to be famous cause Bossip and BallerAlert and whatever other gossip blogs gave him server and bandwidth to be messy. 

Full disclosure, Kerry is a friend of the blog. He helped me promote it with a contest when I first launched. I find him to be very kind and approachable. But even if not, I’d still be sick about what’s happening to him now.

It’s one thing when homophobic politicians are exposed to be dabbling with the kids or some holier-than-thou leader is found with a mistress…in those cases I can see the point and motivation in outing someone (although, to be honest, I can’t think of any instance in which the outing changed a damn thing!) But when a person is simply living their life, probably in shame, outing them just feels gross and wrong.

I know that there are many people like me who are ready to see the NFL become a safer space for gay players. But that doesn’t mean we want to see people thrust into sharing their private preferences (and pictures!). Plus, if what Hollywood said was true-that Kerry’s teammates saw them together and never bothered him about it- it really begs the question why anyone outside of an athlete’s immediate circle even needs to know anything. Maybe this is what “out” in the NFL is…”out” to those who need to know.  Besides, I don’t think NFL players, on a whole, are as close minded (and may have never been!) as people would like to believe. Lots of secrets are kept between teammates and coaches and agents and sexual habits are just one type.

Still and all, what this fame-seeker is doing to Kerry is a complete violation of trust, privacy, and human decency that I could have lived without. He just seems like an awful individual. 

I’m wishing Kerry the best as he searches for a new team. He played well last season and should get another shot.