He was convicted of 46 counts of assault and battery—as a juvenile. He's been in and out of prison constantly, and, strapped for cash, turned to no-rules underground fighting, well, because he's good at it. He's also totally out.

The New York Times Magazine profiled Shad Smith this weekend—who is a "mixed-martial-artist" and participates in fights that are much more hard-core than the official UFC league allows—and casually mentions that he's gay and lives with his boyfriend in San Bernardino, CA. Crazy! Here's some more:

I asked Smith why he spent so much of his youth looking for trouble. I expected some sort of clichéd, though possibly true, explanation — a difficult childhood or a Napoleon complex. What I didn’t expect him to say was, “You know, bro, the sexual-preference thing.”

Smith is gay, and I know of no other professional fighter who is openly so. “I was always scared that my mom and dad would find out and wouldn’t like me, and my brothers wouldn’t like me,” he said. “I was petrified, because I didn’t want anyone to find out. And I would try to be the toughest person around. That way, no one would suspect, no one would ever say it, no one would think it.”

Now his mom and dad, and a brother and a neice, live with him in his house. Acceptance comes in all sorts of forms, doesn't it?

[via BGay.com]

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written by Robert Tafoya on March 25, 2008

Really? San Bernardino? That's a stone-throw away from my hometown. Hmmm...

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