Pat Patterson: Beg WWE's First Gay Wrtler, Vce McMahon Retirg and Mentorg The Rock

Contents:

• PAT PATTERSON, THE FIRST OPENLY GAY PRO WRTLG STAR, HAS DIED AT 79
• PAT PATTERSON WAS THE FIRST OPENLY GAY PRO WRTLER — SI THE LATE STAR'S PERSONAL LIFE
• THE GOVERNMENT’S GAY WCH HUNT OF PAT PATTERSON
• WWE HALL OF FAMER PAT PATTERSON, 1ST GAY SUPERSTAR PANY, DI AT 79
• PAT PATTERSON: BEG WWE'S FIRST GAY WRTLER, VCE MCMAHON RETIRG AND MENTORG THE ROCK
• WWE LEGEND PAT PATTERSON REVEALS THAT HE'S GAY
• WWE HALL OF FAMER, FIRST OPENLY GAY WRTLG STAR, PAT PATTERSON, DI AT 79
• WWE IN PAT PATTERSON COM OUT: I 'SURVIVED' THE INDTRY BEG GAY
• ACCEPTED: HOW THE FIRST GAY SUPERSTAR CHANGED WWE
• PAT PATTERSON WAS A POWERFUL GAY VOICE THE WWE, AND THAT MA ALL THE DIFFERENCE

PAT PATTERSON, THE FIRST OPENLY GAY PRO WRTLG STAR, HAS DIED AT 79

Pro wrtlg in Pat Patterson, the dtry's first openly gay star and a long-time litenant of promoter Vce McMahon, has died, officials said WWE Hall of Fame member was Patterson at the 53rd Cliflower Alley Club Rnn Conventn at the Gold Coast Hotel & Caso Las Vegas, Nev.

PAT PATTERSON WAS THE FIRST OPENLY GAY PRO WRTLER — SI THE LATE STAR'S PERSONAL LIFE

"The teenaged Patterson was thrown out of his home Montreal after g out to his parents and did the unthkable — immigrated to Ameri to make the hyper-macho world of pro wrtlg, he wrote his 2016 bgraphy, "Accepted: How the First Gay Superstar Changed WWE. "Havg a gay man wh a seat at the cisn-makg table at a pany like the WWE was and is credibly important, " Zeigler said.

The visibily of his g out years later was great, but havg a seat at the table and makg sure the people around him knew he was gay, the power of that n't be overstated. Very few thgs show how the wrtlg dtry – and the world, by extensn – has evolved the recent years better than an openly gay wrtler performg for the biggt wrtlg promotn, WWE.

Wh Bret Hart tweetg on the back of Darren Young g out that the wrtlg dtry has been acmodatg of homosexual persons sce forever, one wonrs if there’s any tth to the sirs’ nvictn. His sexualy and acplishments wrtlg is chronicled superbly his tobgraphy Accepted: How the First Gay Superstar Changed WWE. However, unlike most other spiratnal LGBT wrtlers, he was a horrible human beg who jt happened to be gay.

THE GOVERNMENT’S GAY WCH HUNT OF PAT PATTERSON

While most of the wrtlers we’ve discsed seem to have overe the bulli and homophob, here’s a sad se that saw the wrtler end his life, overdosg on antiprsants.

WWE HALL OF FAMER PAT PATTERSON, 1ST GAY SUPERSTAR PANY, DI AT 79

When he announced 2014 that he was gay, they remaed Patterson, the first major wrtlg star to announce that he was gay, died on Wednday Miami Beach. Patterson on his tobgraphy, “Accepted: How the First Gay Superstar Changed WWE” (2016) s of workg his way up through regnal wrtlg circus Montreal, Boston and San Francis, Mr. McMahon’s rivalry wh the wrtler Stone Cold Steve At the late announced he was gay 2014 durg an episo of “Legends’ Hoe, ” a realy televisn show on the WWE Network which retired pro wrtlers were sequtered though his iends and some wrtlg sirs knew about his sexualy, Mr.

) Early his Canadian reer, he relled, he sometim traveled to towns “near the end of the known world” and wrtled there for five dollars a he was 16, he disvered a gay bar. Wh his first gay sexual experience, he wrote his memoir, he found two thgs that had been largely missg om his life: “tenrns and affectn. “The driver, who was a big guy, jumped out of his tck and me toward me to tell me he was gay, too.

His time New England would open doors profsnally for him natnwi, but also prented an environment for him to fully embrace his gay inty. For many, Patterson’s sexual orientatn was his most powerful aspect — pecially agast the background of pro wrtlg’s near-nstant flirtatn wh homophobia. Many erroneoly pot to Patterson as the first out gay pro wrtler, but that narrative’s hold remas strong bee of the legacy Patterson leav behd.

PAT PATTERSON: BEG WWE'S FIRST GAY WRTLER, VCE MCMAHON RETIRG AND MENTORG THE ROCK

Inducted to the WWE Hall of Fame class of 1996, Pat Patterson was the first openly gay profsnal wrtler history.

”PAT PATTERSON WAS GAYIn ont of his fellow WWE legends, Patterson revealed that he "survived all this beg gay. Acrdg to the late Hall of Famer, tellg the world that he was gay was credibly important, so much so that he uldn’t fd “words powerful enough” to expla his the words of profsnal wrtlg manager Pl Heyman, Pat Patterson’s ntributns to people’s liv will forever be appreciated. As a young gay man of that era, Patterson’s reer profsnal wrtlg was, some ways, a refuge om the rt of the world, cludg his father’s rejectn at home.

Though homophobic many ways — most visibly s e of gay-bag villas of var strip, like natnal televisn star Geo Gee — the bs was more acceptg behd-the-scen than a lot of society at the time. As turns out, startg at the end of 1964, the Jtice Department’s now-funct Immigratn and Naturalizatn Service (INS) spent years vtigatg Patterson, wh the goal beg to fd evince of “homosexual activy” that uld be ed to have him ported back to Canada.

WWE LEGEND PAT PATTERSON REVEALS THAT HE'S GAY

This was at the tail end of the Lavenr Sre, a systematic persecutn of ernment employe who were gay or perceived as gay. He adds that gay immigrants tend to attract the attentn of the INS “if they got ught up any kd of law enforcement problem.

“This vtigatn based on rmatn received om the OFFICE OF SPECIAL INVESTIGATION, Uned Stat [redacted], furnishg rmatn that the SUBJECT is a homosexual, ” reads the troductn to one memo Patterson’s INS file, dated April 14, 1965, which I obtaed unr the Freedom of Informatn Act after Patterson’s ath December 2020.

WWE HALL OF FAMER, FIRST OPENLY GAY WRTLG STAR, PAT PATTERSON, DI AT 79

“Object to lote and terview any persons who may be able to offer rmatn of the SUBJECT’S possible homosexual activi. Rsell “Ron Dupree” Grobe, who troduced Patterson to Donro and who served as somethg of a mentor for Patterson terms of navigatg the Boston gay scene, had portrayed gay (Goln Boy Dupree) and otherwise queer-d (the “androgyno” Geo Gi-Gi) gimmicks, though an actual gay man portrayg such rol wasn’t necsarily the norm. But an April 14, 1965 summary of wns terviews pots to what appear to be the likely flash pots — one of which was an vtigatn of the lol gay muny by the Portland Police Department’s morals squad.

WWE IN PAT PATTERSON COM OUT: I 'SURVIVED' THE INDTRY BEG GAY

“The reports relate to an vtigatn nducted by Portland Police Department morals officers at homosexual parti Portland, ” the document reads. The same document also allus to the fact that the Air Force’s Office of Special Invtigatn was lookg to a different wrtler — an Air Force veteran whose name was redacted — “to terme whether he is actually a homosexual and therefore subject to discharge om the air force. After dispensg wh the PPD and Air Force rmatn, the aforementned document lv to the terviews wh var “Portland area homosexuals” about Patterson.

Many of the tails are mundane: One wns, who had “held ‘gay’ parti at his home” that Patterson and Donro attend, “said he had never actually seen the SUBJECT engagg homosexual activi wh other persons at the parti” and that “the SUBJECT’S actns’ at the parti were the same as any other gay person. ” (Given the time, ntext and different of the term “boy” the gay muny, as well as a lack of any kd of age range beg given, ’s bt not to take that phrasg too lerally.

Another wns who attend the Portland area “gay parti” told the Portland Police that Patterson “acted gay, the same as the rt of the people at the parti” and “was known at the parti as ‘MISS PATTERSON.

ACCEPTED: HOW THE FIRST GAY SUPERSTAR CHANGED WWE

’” Yet another was listed on the morals squad reports as a “victim” bee he was “the passive person on whom acts of sodomy were mted by homosexuals, ” but he nied knowg Patterson.

PAT PATTERSON WAS A POWERFUL GAY VOICE THE WWE, AND THAT MA ALL THE DIFFERENCE

The se self appears to have largely gone dormant for a while, likely due to the lack of clear evince of “homosexual activy. In the terim, though, the INS fely kept diggg, startg three days after the hearg, when they asked the Air Force for the file of the aforementned gay serviceman and pro wrtler who may have had some kd of sexual relatns wh Patterson.

On November 3, 1964, the airman admted an terview to “homosexual relatns, ” cludg specifilly namg Patterson as a partner while strsg that he had only been wh civilians, not other servicemen. A few weeks later, on December 9th, Patterson would be terviewed, wh tails clud the Air Force vtigator’s fal report: “PAT PATERSON [sic] was ntacted Seattle on December 9, 1964 and nied ever havg any homosexula [sic] relatns wh [redacted]; that when [redacted] was terviewed later he too nied his prev admissn of homosexual relatns wh Pat Paterson [sic] and explaed the reason for such false admissn was only bee of ‘PATS’ [sic] reputatn of beg a homo, and his sire to be relieved om the [several words redacted]. Although, as you n well image, we n not get a homosexual to adm havg relatns wh him, neverthels the file ntas plenty of rmatn to the effect that he is homosexual.

Siarly, a 1985 posn for an unrelated lawsu, Shire, though admtg he was a homophobe, also laid out how he tolerated Patterson thanks to his “discretn” about his sexualy. That discretn, though, was specific to public life, as was far om a secret the wrtlg bs that Patterson was gay.