"American Gladiators"' First Gay Contender

From Survivor to The Amazing Race to Project Runway, gay men have competed on and won some of the best-known reality shows on television. But in American Gladiators' twenty years of existence (totalling eight seasons), not a single openly gay man has even competed on the sports competition program.

That changes Monday night on NBC's current incarnation of the show when twenty-nine-year old Sean Hetherington pits himself against "gladiators" sporting such monikers as Hurricane, Militia, and Justice.

Sean Hetherington

So who is this out man marking a first for gay visibility? He's certainly not the sort of contender one might expect to try to battle their way through such physically demanding events as the "The Wall", "Joust", and "Atlasphere" all while the "Gladiators" do all they can to thwart them.

For starters, Hetherington stands 5'10" and weighs only 165 pounds. In comparison, Justice, one of the gladiators Hetherington will square off against, clocks in at 6'8" and 290 pounds. Throw in the fact Hetherington is also a stand-up comedian who just over five years ago lost over a hundred pounds, and you have an unlikely candidate to be the first gay contender on this most physically grueling of reality shows.

So how did Hetherington come to be the gay man breaking through this particular glass ceiling?

"I grew up being a huge fan of American Gladiators," Hetherington told AfterElton.com. "When I was a kid, I would go in my room, grab a hamburger from McDonalds and a large order of fries and an apple pie and sit in there and watch the show. I’m a lifelong fan of Hulk Hogan [who co-hosts the show] and of wrestling, and I’ve always loved it. And I always thought, well, there’s no way I would ever be on that show because I’m too fat and I’m not an athlete."

Sean before his weight loss

Hetherington eliminated those particular roadblocks in 2003 when he finished losing the weight that had dogged him since childhood. In fact, Hetherington not only remade himself into an athlete competing in marathons, but he also became a personal trainer to help others do the same. Yet the fact remained that not only was Hetherington gay, which he perceived as a barrier, but the show had gone off the air back in 1996. That changed in January of 2008 when NBC relaunched a revamped version.

"I was so excited that it was going to be on" said Hetherington. "My boyfriend and I we’re sitting there watching the show and I said, 'You know, I should be on this show.' And he kinda looked at me like, 'Yeah – sure you should'. Then we were in New York when they had an open casting call. I went and the line was wrapped around the block and it was all these beefy muscle-head personal trainer guys. And I said, 'This is not for me.'"

That might have been the end of the story had not fate intervened.

"One day I was waiting tables," Hetherington explained. "Actually this is about six months ago, and I waited on a guy who asked me what my story was. I had just turned in my notice because I was going to personal train full-time so I told him how I had lost weight and now I was a personal trainer. He didn’t tell me who he was or what he did. He just left. And the next day, I came to work and someone said, 'There’s a producer from that TV show American Gladiators on the phone. He said he wants to talk to the gay guy who used to be really fat.' I thought it was my boyfriend playing a joke on me. So I went to the phone and said, 'What do you want?'"

Instead of Hetherington's boyfriend playing a prank, the caller turned out to be someone from American Gladiators, and they were interested in having Hetherington on the show. After multiple rounds of physical evaluations and personality tests, not to mention a rigorous "boot camp" all the contenders have to pass, Hetherington got word he'd made the show. In fact, he was the very last contender to make the cut.

"They called me and gave me the [news] that I got on, I just sat in my room and cried. I couldn’t believe it."