Kordell Stewart may have recently filed for divorce from Real Housewives of Atlanta cast member and wife, Porsha Stewart but that doesn’t mean his sordid past will disappear with his marriage.
For any avid sports fan who isn’t sufferring from temporary amnesia, Stewart’s stellar career as a quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers abruptly ended after rumors of him engaging in homosexual activities surfaced.
Kordell Stewart quit the game after being labeled as gay by many of his teammates & peers. The site reports, ‘Kordell, a stellar quarterback who once played for the Pittsburgh Steelers, was plagued by talk that he frequented Schenley Park, a Pittsburgh area park frequented by gay and transexual men. There was even talk that an officer had once witnessed Stewart engaging in gay sex in a limousine but because of his notoriety as the city’s star quarterback, the incident was swept under the rug. Apparently as time went on, other reports of his alleged homosexual activity became “rumors” that never held any substantiated proof.’
Kordell’s former teammate Plaxico Burress even commented on the rumors of Kordell’s sexuality. In a 2008 radio interview with Tim Benz of 105.9 The X in Pittsburgh, Burress stated: “It had to be tough on him personally. I didn’t call him gay or anything like that. . . . I think that’s one of the reasons why he really couldn’t become the player that he wanted to be. . . . It has to play on you mentally a little bit.”
His sexuality became such an issue amongst his team mates that he regularly had to convince them in defending him on the field.
As a QB, it’s important for your team mates to protect you on the field, and being that most NFL players (especially back then) weren’t too “gay friendly,” there were times Stewart had to convince his own team that he wasn’t gay for his own protection on the field.
In the 1997 season, Kordell called a team meeting specifically to reiterate that he wasn’t gay.
He’s said to have gone into details about specific sex acts that he liked and also wanted to reassure his team mates of his heterosexuality, stating: “I believe in Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
Stewart also he allegedly warned team mates: “You’d better not leave your girlfriends around me, because I’m out to prove a point!”
Kordell & Porsha Stewart
For an alleged rumor, it definitely refused to die, and even found itself as subject matter in Burress’ book, Giant: The Road to the Super Bowl
People were talking about [Kordell] being gay. The players heard that, but we never talked about it. I don’t know if Kordell is gay or not. It was none of our business. If ever we would have talked about it, it would have made everybody uncomfortable.
If some player was gay, I don’t think he could come out while he was still playing. It would be real hard. It would mess a team up mentally and it wouldn’t be good for that person.
He had to watch the people that he hung around with. Just hanging out with your friends, or your boys and your cousins, all those things come to the surface. I think he just insulated himself after a while.
And it eventually bled over to mainstream media.
In 1999, Sports Illustrated addressed the topic of Stewart’s sexuality. Up until that point, Stewart had declined to discuss private life, but he recounted to Sports Illustrated that the team meeting was prompted by friends who told him of rumors circulating about him being gay.
Sports Illustrated had also done an article that referenced fans’ speculation about Stewart’s sexual preference.
Share your thoughts: Do you think Kordell Stewart is gay?
By Carla St. Louis (@SheWrites007)
Source: TheYBF, AllThingsRealHousewives, FunkyDineva (more), StraightFromTheA, Yahoo
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