{"id":143243,"date":"2023-11-15T16:17:28","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T16:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity-hub.com\/?p=143243"},"modified":"2023-11-15T16:17:28","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T16:17:28","slug":"kelly-holmes-reveals-absolutely-shocking-experience-during-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity-hub.com\/lifestyle\/kelly-holmes-reveals-absolutely-shocking-experience-during-military\/","title":{"rendered":"Kelly Holmes reveals &apos;absolutely shocking experience&apos; during military"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Dame Kelly Holmes reveals &#8216;absolutely shocking experience&#8217; in military that left her &#8216;in fear for 32 years&#8217;<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The athlete, 53, was promoting her memoire Unique on Good Morning Britain<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>READ MORE: Kelly Holmes makes her first red carpet appearance with her girlfriend Louise Cullen at the Diversity Awards<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Dame Kelly Holmes has revealed how she lived in fear for more than three decades before coming out as gay in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Appearing on\u00a0Good Morning Britain\u00a0today to promote her memoire Unique, the\u00a053-year-old athlete revealed how she hid\u00a0her sexuality as a young soldier at a time when being gay in the military was illegal<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I went through a really difficult decision in lockdown\u00a0where it was a choice to live or not. It got that bad,&#8217; she revealed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I decided that I&#8217;m gonna live. I have more to live. I&#8217;m a successful strong woman but I&#8217;m being suppressed in my thoughts and I didn&#8217;t want to do that,&#8217; Dame Kelly told\u00a0Susanna Reid.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The presenter described an &#8216;absolutely shocking experience&#8217; from the book.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/13\/12\/77736095-12742723-image-a-19_1699880211468.jpg\" height=\"813\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Dame Kelly Holmes appeared on Good Morning Britain today to promote her memoire Unique<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The Royal Military Police raid your room in search of evidence that you were gay, I mean I have no idea what they expected to find, shouting &#8220;admit you&#8217;re a lesbian&#8221; at you.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I am not surprised that left you shaking,&#8217; Susanna said.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly explained: &#8216;The military was what affected my life and left me in fear for 32 years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It leaves you so petrified you don&#8217;t know what to do. I was scared of losing my job. I loved my career in the military.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Some military personnel were jailed, stripped of long service medals, bullied, sexually abused. So that has left a trauma for so many.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>However, she showed appreciation for the recent apology from the Prime Minister and acknowledged a significant change in the military.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Since 2000, it&#8217;s one of the best industries to be yourself and be accepted. Diverse inclusion is huge in the military,&#8217; Kelly explained.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Does it feel like you&#8217;ve now got a weight off your shoulders?,&#8217; Susanna asked.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Hugely. I think it&#8217;s really important to establish why that has made a change to me,&#8217; Kelly replied.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She continued: &#8216;A lot of people go, &#8220;Oh why do we need to talk about this anymore&#8230;&#8221; about coming out.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/13\/12\/77736091-12742723-image-a-21_1699880264553.jpg\" height=\"479\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Dame Kelly joined Susanna Reid and Ed Balls in the Good Morning Britain studio<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/13\/12\/77736101-12742723-image-a-18_1699880204895.jpg\" height=\"813\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The 53-year-old athlete revealed how she hid her sexuality as a young soldier at a time when being gay in the military was illegal <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/13\/12\/77736105-12742723-image-a-22_1699880270032.jpg\" height=\"481\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>She explained how a particularly shocking experience left her &#8216;in fear for 32 years&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/13\/12\/77736099-12742723-image-a-17_1699880198111.jpg\" height=\"846\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>However, she noted a significant change in the military, saying: &#8216;Since 2000, it&#8217;s one of the best industries to be yourself and be accepted&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/13\/12\/77736089-12742723-image-a-16_1699880189142.jpg\" height=\"846\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Dame Kelly Holmes is now a leading advocate for LGBT rights<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But the association with the era that I grew up and the generation I grew up was very taboo, a lot of bullying and judgmental bigotry.\u00a0It does take time for people my age to actually do it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Because I served in the military when there was a ban where it was illegal to be gay and it only got lifted in 2000.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;By 2000, I was an international world-class athlete as well and I didn&#8217;t have any role models. I was scared about what would happen to me during that period of time &#8211; whether I could be done for being gay because I served in the military as a gay woman.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;People say to me: &#8220;You knew it was illegal to be gay&#8221;. I didn&#8217;t know I was gay when I joined the army so there&#8217;s a lot of complexities about my journey.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The reason for coming out last year was to free me as an individual to feel that I could live my life authentically.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Ed Balls recalled going into politics at a young age, saying it wasn&#8217;t acceptable to talk about being gay and many people denied their sexuality.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The world has changed for the better. In one way there&#8217;s a lot of things that need to happen to allow people to really feel free,&#8217; Kelly said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But for me it was the whole trauma that it caused me.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Anyone living in fear, no matter what that was, it&#8217;s debilitating because you worry about the outcome after whatever you do in life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I had this fear that literally caused me so many mental health problems that I had to make a decision to come out.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/13\/12\/77736085-12742723-image-a-15_1699880184229.jpg\" height=\"852\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Kelly was stylishly dressed in a velvet blazer, floral blouse and faux leather leggings<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/13\/12\/77736087-12742723-image-a-14_1699880176964.jpg\" height=\"1079\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>She accessorised with suede ankle boots and delicate layered jewellery<\/p>\n<p>Ed asked how easy it was for Kelly to block everything out and focus on her career.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;To be an international world class athlete you have to have a die-hard strength inside you, that extra resilience to be who you want to be and nothing else matters,&#8217; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I only ever wanted to be in the army and to be an Olympic champion because it gave me a sense of identity and courage and purpose in life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But that inner turmoil, that inner trauma, of just worried and looking over your back all the time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I was the first woman athlete to win two gold medals so I was celebrated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Everybody loved Kelly Holmes and put me on a pedestal and yet I had already had a breakdown during my international athletics career &#8211; which I didn&#8217;t talk about until my first autobiography in 2005 &#8211; when no one talked about mental health awareness.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;There&#8217;s always been gay people, bisexual, transgender, there&#8217;s always been people from the community in the world forever.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;There&#8217;s always been people with mental health problems forever.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We&#8217;re just now getting to the point where it can be more acceptable to talk about.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Being more open and honest is really important for change. To normalise conversation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I went through a really difficult decision in lockdown where it was a choice to live or not. It got that bad. I decided that I&#8217;m gonna live. I have more to live. I&#8217;m a successful strong woman but I&#8217;m being suppressed in my thoughts and I didn&#8217;t want to do that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We always judge people by what they look like or what they sound like or what they&#8217;re meant to be.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But get to know people because we\u00a0all deserve to live side by side and just be us\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/femail\/article-12742723\/dame-kelly-holmes-reveals-absolutely-shocking-experience-time-military-GMB.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dame Kelly Holmes reveals &#8216;absolutely shocking experience&#8217; in military that left her &#8216;in fear for 32 years&#8217; The athlete, 53, was promoting her memoire Unique on Good Morning Britain READ MORE: Kelly Holmes makes her first red carpet appearance with her girlfriend Louise Cullen at the Diversity Awards Dame Kelly Holmes has revealed how she [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143242,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Kelly Holmes reveals &amp;apos;absolutely shocking experience&amp;apos; 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