A Quote by Orlando Cruz
15 or 20 years ago it would not have been possible for me to come out. Back then, people still had such narrow views, but today many of them are more liberal. Being gay is no longer a taboo in many parts of society. That has affected sports, even boxing.
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What people don't know is that I'm a blackbelt in jujitsu, which I've been for 20 years, and I've been boxing since I've been 15 years old - those are things that come natural to me.
In terms of - my relationship with so many, many young people. I would - I would guess that there are many young people who would come forward. Many more young people who would come forward and say that my methods and - and what I had done for them made a very positive impact on their life. And I didn't go around seeking out every young person for sexual needs that I've helped. There are many that I didn't have - I hardly had any contact with who I have helped in many, many ways.
One time, many, many years ago, I had the opportunity to dye my hair brunette for a film. And the day I walked out of the hotel where I had it done, I walked out onto the street and realized people looked me in the eye and greeted me good morning. I'd never had that experience before! And I began to notice that a brunette is treated as an affable human being. Later, when I dyed my hair for Lois Riley blonde, and then Alice Ward blonde, people come right up to you, they touch you on the arm, they ask you how you're doing. Men and women both! Blondes have more fun.
I grew up when people were afraid to 'come out' as gay. If you asked me how many gay kids I grew up with or went to school with, I would have said none - which of course could not have been true. The truth is I have no idea how many confused and frightened kids I grew up with. They are still out there.
I was a prosecutor for 25 years. I saw so many 15, 16, even 20 year-olds who could not read, had little hope that they would ever find work, faced more challenges than opportunities in life, dropped out of school at some point, and turned to crime.
I came out as a gay as I have earned myself respect as an athlete. I have only lost 2 out of 22 professional fights. I knocked out some of my opponents in the first round. But I never really received respect as a person. That's something I had come to realize over the past few years. The end of my boxing career is no longer that far off, and it was time for me to make peace with myself. And there was a second reason for me to come out: I hoped it would make me a better boxer.
I've seen too many people who struggle financially who save thousands of dollars and go on a one year trip. And then they come back out of money, thirty years old, and back to living with their parents and saying 'I'm back to getting any job possible to get more money for travel.'
Many years before when I had serious back pain from a sports injury, the surgeons said they would explore my spine and "figure it out." Out of frustration I had impulsively opted for the procedure. They ended up fusing the vertebrae. It left me debilitated. In hindsight, I blamed myself more than the surgeons. I had pressed them for a solution when in fact none was apparent because the cause of the pain was obscure.
Basically everything I've done in art, I was in possession of when I was 20 years old. I use a waste retrieval method of working. I'll go back and use something that disgusted me 15 years ago but that I had enough sense to think about. Some artists change dramatically. I see my work more like history being written.
If I stayed a football player, my career would have been over 20 years ago. As it is, my knees are shot. I found I got the same good feeling in acting that I had in sports, but I found I could have a more profound impact on people.
In the last 15 to 20 years the best central midfielder that I have seen — the most complete — is Scholes. I have spoken with Xabi Alonso about this many times. Scholes is a spectacular player who has everything. He can play the final pass, he can score, he is strong, he never gets knocked off the ball and he doesn’t give possession away. If he had been Spanish then maybe he would have been valued more.
We have more information than ever before, and it is harder to avoid actually seeing what the other side is saying. Yes, we in Business insider focus on publications that we feel speak to us, but that is the same way it was 20 or 100 years ago. In the US, two million people have subscribed to the New York Times and many more millions think it is a terrible, liberal paper they would never read. We can choose to put ourselves in a bubble of only people who agree with us, but in the digital world there are many more ways of saying "Hey, here is something you might want to consider".
When I came out, and for many years afterwards, it had become a habit for me to sit and read and read and read, like an obsession. I would take 20 books, and not come out until I'd finished them. It took me a while to change that habit.
It's a lot easier to make a living as a writer in Hollywood than it was probably 10 years ago, though there's still just as many unemployed people in Hollywood as there ever has been, but there's so many more avenues to sell things, because of digital, and Amazon, and Netflix, and all these different platforms. That's crazy and exciting in a creative way, and we'll see where that all stands five years from now. But on the corporate side, I still see that pendulum swinging back in that other direction, which is a little not comforting.
In many ways, I feel I'm still as physically fit as I was 20 years ago because I've always been athletic.
We haven't been out in many of these countries helping them build infrastructure. How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that, rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?
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