Anthony Bowens has opened up about how he made the decision to come out in 2017, and how one little post on social media changed his life.
Anthony Bowens signed with All Elite Wrestling in November 2020, and alongside Max Caster has become a consistent presence on AEW television. This position means that he’s one of the most high-profile male openly gay wrestlers in the world.
While he has since admitted that he felt uncertain about having to come out in the world of pro wrestling, Bowens stated that this one brave decision changed his life for the better.
In an episode of “Talk Is Jericho,” the Acclaimed and AEW star shared the story of how he opened up about his relationship on Facebook and the positive response he received.
The AEW star began by describing how he kept his relationship a secret, as he didn’t feel ready to come out publicly.
“I eventually came out in January of 17. So what happened with that was I met my boyfriend Michael in May of 16. We dated secretly for about six months, which I feel really, really guilty about, but I didn’t really feel like it was my time yet to come out. So I asked him just to bear with me, which, you know, to his credit, he liked me enough that he did, and there was times where it did suck, especially for him. Because, you know, he, you know, he wants to show his boyfriend around to his friends, so that was a bit hard.
He always wants to start a YouTube channel. And he’s like, let’s just make this fun, like YouTube video together. And I was like, nope, that’s not happening. Again, I promise you, this won’t be a forever thing, I just need to feel ready. And I saw how much that like, it bothered him and rightfully so, so screw it, no one’s gonna see this, you have like three subscribers. Let’s make the video.
So it was something called a laughing challenge where you watch like a funny video, different clips and you put water in your mouth and you lose if you can’t hold the laughter in, very silly. We made it didn’t thinking anything of it.
A couple months later, my buddy Damian, who was one of my friends in the business at the time, he texted me, he was like, dude, you know, why didn’t you tell me? And my stomach sank, and I knew what he was talking about. But I played dominoes. And yeah, what do you mean? Yeah, what the hell is this man? Dude, like, we saw the video, no one cares. We all love you, you know, you’re a great worker, we just wish you would have told us.
At that point, I was like, I had the support of my best friends. I had the support of my family. And my wrestling friends support me as well. Like, what am I kind of waiting for here? I have this great relationship with Michael that I’m hiding.
What do I have to lose here? Like, I don’t care about anybody else, I have my core set. And then from a wrestling perspective, I can help people who are feeling the same way that I was feeling, maybe I could provide them hope, the hope that I didn’t, or I thought I didn’t have.”
Anthony Bowens went on to explain that all it took was one short Facebook status to change his life forever.
“So it was like a couple’s game night. For some reason I just felt like the time was right. I picked up my phone, I typed up a little something on Facebook, I shut it off and like threw my phone across the room. I didn’t tell anybody I didn’t tell my parents and tell my friends. I wanted the decision to be mine in mind only. And then about 45 minutes in I told Michael to pick up his phone to go on Facebook because back then relationships weren’t official until it was Facebook official.
I sent him the relationship request and I remember it I’ll never forget, he picked up the phone, huge smile came across his face. And then we we read through all this stuff, which was I’d say about 99% positive and you know, cried and all that stuff. And it was a good moment and that kind of like phase one of coming out.
And then part two was I was approached maybe like a couple months later by this website called Out Sports, which I had never heard of. They’re an affiliate of the Huffington Post, which I had no idea. And they’re like, ‘hey, we’d like to write about your hobby. Would you like to write about your story?’ And I was like, Well, sure, if one person reads it, you know, at least I helped, didn’t think anything of it.
So I wrote it up, sent it in, and I woke up the next day, and my phone was just exploding, because, you know, half all the half posts around the world and all these other media outlets were just, it was going viral. And since then, my life has been forever changed.”
Since coming out, Anthony Bowens has become one of pro wrestling’s loudest LBGTQ advocates. Bowens is currently being kept out of the ring by a knee injury, although he has remained on AEW television.
If you use any of the quotes from the article please give a h/t and link back to Inside The Ropes.