Football player Esera Tuaolo played 10 seasons in the NFL. In 2002, two years after his retirement, he publicly came out as gay on HBO's "Real Sports" and has since become an outspoken activist on anti-bullying and LGBTQ+ rights, founding a nonprofit organisation called Hate Is Wrong.
"It was very difficult waking up every single morning and as soon as you walk through those doors to the locker room, you transform yourself into somebody that you're not," he said in 2019 on an episode of Talks at GS. He described coming out as difficult but "incredible," opening up doors for him to pursue other passions like singing; Tuaolo even competed on The Voice in 2017.
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