It’s been long rumored that Aaron Hernandez had a gay lover, but now we’re learning just how intimate he was with the previously unnamed man before his passing.

From all appearances, Hernandez was successful, a football star and had a wife. That image has changed though after the former New England Patriots tight end was convicted of murdering Odin Lloyd.

Hernandez, who committed suicide in prison last year, was also revealed to be homosexual and it was only after his death that Dennis SanSoucie came out as one of the football player’s gay lovers. SanSoucie played football with Hernandez in high school and recently explained to the Boston Globe how he began his off-the-field relationship with Aaron.

“Me and him were very much into trying to hide what we were doing,” SanSoucie said. “We didn't want people to know.” Jonathan Hernandez, Aaron’s older brother, says their father, who passed away when Aaron was in high school, believed Hernandez “had a feminine way about him.”

“He wanted to be a cheerleader. My cousins were cheerleaders and amazing,” Jonathan recalled. “And I remember coming home and my dad put an end to that real quick. And it was not okay. My dad made it clear that he had his definition of a man.”

Jonathan went on to tell the Globe about how he ruled his family with an “iron fist,” which many believe had Aaron hiding his sexuality. A college girlfriend also later revealed that Hernandez had told her about being molested as a child and that "he never dealt with it" and "it led to issues in his sexuality."

After Aaron Hernandez passed away, his family donated his brain to Boston University, which found that the 27-year-old suffered from the most severe case of CTE ever found in a person that young. Hernandez reportedly took his own life only two days after he was outed on The Kirk & Callahan Show. 

Read the Boston Globe’s full report here.