Guillaume Cizeron and Gabriella Papadakis, the star couple of French skating. – Daniel MIHAILESCU / AFP
“I am at peace with who I am”, assures AFP the world champion Guillaume Cizeron on the occasion of the release of a touching book in which he describes the pangs of homosexuality long suffered, that skating artistic helped him to assume.
“I’m not an activist, it’s more to educate people”
“It is not militant”, assures the quadruple world champion of ice dance, by explaining the process of his first book, My best victory (Editions XO) during an interview in Montreal. This is where the French skater has lived and trained since 2014 with his lifelong partner, Gabriella Papadakis.
“My most beautiful victory” is now available!
Thank you to those who made this book possible, thank you to Lionel Duroy, Renaud Leblond, @ninon_bardel, to my parents, my sister Blandine and many others 💛 https://t.co/bGdbsc1Upm– Guillaume Cizeron (@GuillaumeCIZ) April 29, 2021
He does not claim to be the spokesperson for a cause, rather to help those who are suffering. “It’s really more to educate people, to give life from the inside to someone who may never have wondered what it was like to grow up for someone who is homosexual” , he said. “I find it interesting for me, to share and maybe help some people to accept themselves or to look at maybe with a different point of view what they have been through and what they are going through at the moment. “.
A “disease” which he hoped to get rid of by hitting the walls
In this moving story, he tells the insults suffered from the age of 6 by the effeminate child that he was, who preferred to play Barbies with his sisters rather than small cars or football. In it, he describes his torments at what he initially thought was an “illness”, which he hoped to get rid of by banging his head against the walls.
He remembers the day when his father, cultivated and a priori open, let out a “Disgusting!” As two men kissed on TV. However, he is not angry with his family, loving and united, or against those who mocked him. “I am angry with ideas, beliefs, prejudices. I find that such a shame. Because I learned to hate myself, I didn’t hate myself by nature. “
Russell Tovey (“Years and Years”) tells how his father wanted to “cure” him of his homosexuality