Sports Illustrated may have landed Jason Collins for his coming out story but it is Oprah Winfrey who managed to get his family together for a joint interview.

Winfrey’s chat with the first openly gay active player in NBA history, his parents, twin brother, sister-in-law and aunt for Oprah’s Next Chapter which will air Sunday (5 May) on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Winfrey asked parents Paul and Portia Collins if when their son came out to them last summer if there was ‘a releasing of the dream … of who he would be walking down the aisle with.’

‘Yes, yes it was,’ Paul Collins says. ‘I think any parent would have that for a child. Especially since you didn’t know the child was gay. You know, you have these things: he’ll eventually get married, he’s waiting for the end of his career to do that—and you just expect that that’s going to happen – he’ll have children and whatever that might be. And then you have to, you change from that.’

Portia Collins adds: ‘Part of the process after he told us was to go home and kind of let it resonate, for the two of us to talk about it. And on the way home we called him, and on the way home we said, "We love you." And still, like Paul said, you’re going through a lot of different checklists. Did you see this? Did you think this? No.’

Collins addresses the factor of race and why when he came out, he described himself as ‘black’ and ‘gay.’

‘I knew as an African-American, it adds a different dimension to the discussion,’ he tells Winfrey. ‘I was very fortunate that I have a gay uncle. … I knew I had that role model to go to once I got through the baking process.’



