This is heartbreaking. A new interview with Aaron Hernandez‘s older brother, Jonathan, revealed that the former NFL football star was molested as a child, and his father verbally and physically abused him because of his sexuality. “I remember he wanted to be a cheerleader. My cousins were cheerleaders and amazing,” Jonathan recalled in the Boston Globe interview. “I remember coming home and like my dad put an end to that really quick. And it was not OK. My dad made it clear that … he had his definition of a man.” He continued, “‘Faggot’ was used all the time in our house. All the time. Standing. Talking. Acting. Looking. It was the furthest thing my father wanted you to even look like in our household. This was not acceptable to him.”
Recall, Aaron took his own life on April 19, 2017, just days after his was acquitted in the murder of Odin Lloyd and was then outed as gay on a radio program called The Kirk & Callahan Show. At the time, he was engaged to Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez, and wrote her a note, that said, “Tell my story fully but never think anything besides how much I love you.” In the Globe’s stunning profile, Hernandez’s high school coach’s son, Dennis SanSoucie, spoke out about his sexual relationship with Aaron while they were both high school footballs stars. “Me and him were very much into trying to hide what we were doing. We didn’t want people to know,” he said of their affair. Dennis added that after Hernandez took his own life, he came out to his family, too. “I really truly feel in my heart I got the thumbs-up from him,” Dennis said of his coming out.
Jonathan, and one of Aaron’s lawyers George Leontire, both confirmed to the outlet that Aaron did disclose he was molested as a child, but neither went into detail as to what happened. Either way, the interviews reveal the darkness that Aaron faced growing up, and the loneliness he must have felt.