Lance Bass: “He’s been trying to plan this for a very long time, contemplating if he wanted to do this. In fact, he said he was going to call me months ago but was too scared, because he wanted to tell me.
I don’t [know him personally]—we have mutual friends. [Actress] JoAnna Garcia [Swisher] is a really good friend of his and was like ‘Call Lance.’ And so he did. And I gave him some very good advice today because of course everybody wants to interview him…and he was figuring out who would get that first sit down. ...he calls and I was like ‘So, how is your day going?’ And he was like ‘Well, just got off the phone with two presidents and Oprah, so pretty good.’ I told him, look, this is what I wish would have happened when I came out…because when I came out I had 24 hours to decide what was going to happen, because basically the magazine [People] said ‘We’re doing it with or without you.’ So I had 24 hours to decide to do this interview and I did – with People magazine, and I thought it went great. But what I wish I could have done back then was to have a couple of days to sit down with HRC, sit down with GLAAD…get downloaded [on how to handle this]…because back then…[it was just] like Jason told me today ‘I don’t know many gay people because all my life has been is sports, [and] I’ve had such a crazy schedule I never had to think about my private life.’ So I gave him some really great connections…he’s going to sit down with GLAAD…and get some really good information before he does these sit downs…so he doesn’t put his foot in his mouth, say something that he’s going to regret…because this will live [on] for the rest of his life, and he’ll always have this first sit down to look back on – and he wants to make sure it’s good.”
Bass: “He’s such a nice, nice guy, and I think people are going to fall in love with this guy. When you see him in these sit down interviews, everyone is going to fall in love with him and I think people are going to just love the fact that he’s playing… if [he were] some kind of athlete that had an attitude, then maybe people wouldn’t want to [support him]. But [with Jason]…I think we are going to be overwhelmed with the support he gets. [And] this is a very telling time too—no one wants to be on the wrong side of history here, and you know we’ve gone past the threshold of acceptance right now in America. So all these athletes, and coaches and ESPN people-they really have to watch what they say because even if they don’t truly believe in it, they have to publicly support it and make it seem right or they’re going to get crucified.
“…my number one fear of coming out—[was that] I was scared that people were going to make fun of me so much that it would set the community back and scare people into the closet more. Because I thought being a boy bander [in ‘NSYNC], people were going to take that and…[say]…‘Of course!’ and make fun of me so much—I was so scared that it was going to hurt the community, but it didn’t. It totally went the other route.”
Bass: “I so relate [to] the story he was saying where as long as he was in the sport, he was on a set schedule…his life [revolved] around this schedule…and then it was the lockout that really made him [have the time to think about this and make the decision to do it]. He had a vacation, and he finally got to sit back and think about himself, and relationships and love and all of that type of stuff because he had the time – and that’s when he started becoming more comfortable with it and finding out about himself. And that’s exactly what happened with me when we went on the hiatus after the last ‘NSYNC show because…for 24/7, we had the same set schedule [and] I didn’t have time to think about my personal life. And I totally relate to this because it wasn’t until I had time during the hiatus to have a vacation [and take] a couple of weeks off that I became comfortable with it, and met a guy finally and had my first relationship and it was that downtime that really makes you see things.”
So, there's that.
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