14 DAY TRIAL // Lance Bass of ‘N Sync knows a thing or two about coming out on the cover of the magazine, so it’s perhaps not that surprising to hear that NBA player Jason Collins, who came out the other day on Sports Illustrated, sought him for advice.
Speaking about the huge reveal on his SiriusXM’s Dirty Pop with Lance Bass show, the former pop star says Collins reached out to him through a mutual friend, actress JoAnna Garcia.
As we also informed you, with the SI piece, Collins became America’s first openly gay male pro athlete, which, whether he likes it or not, is a piece of history.
According to Bass, Collins was aware of the importance of his statement, so he made sure he took all precautions before going public.
First off, though, he wanted to talk to someone who’d been through the same. Fans will remember that Bass came out on the cover of People magazine in 2006, but he’d been outed before that by gossip blogger Perez Hilton.
“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 he got too scared,” Bass says.
Eventually, Collins called him right before the Sports Illustrated cover came out, so Bass advised him on what to do next.
“I gave him some very good advice today, because everybody wants to interview him,” he says.
“When I came out, I had 24 hours to decide what was going to happen... What I wish I could have done back then was to have a couple of days to sit down with (the Human Rights Campaign), sit down with GLAAD (and) get downloaded (on how to handle this). So I gave him some really great connections,” he explains.
“[I helped him] get some really good information before he does these sit-downs, just so he doesn't put his foot in his mouth... because this will live (on) for the rest of his life, and he wants to make sure it's good,” Bass continues.