Brian Anderson, one of professional skateboarding’s biggest names, has come out as gay.

Anderson turned pro in August 1998, and a year later was named Thrasher magazine’s skater of the year. Photograph: Dario Cantatore/Getty Images

Anderson, 40, spoke about his sexuality publicly for the first time in an interview with Vice Sports. “People ask: ‘Why are you doing this now and not earlier?’ It would have been a lot more beneficial,’” he said.

“Hearing ‘faggot’ all the time, it made me think at a young age, it was really dangerous to talk about it,” Anderson said. “I figured it out how to balance it to where nobody questioned it and I was a big tough skateboarder, of course they’re not going to question that. Nobody thought anything.”

He said that some close friends and family knew about his sexuality, but he said he never talked about it publicly.

“I was really scared,” he said. “People would have perceived it differently if I’d said it 15 years ago.”

Anderson turned pro in August 1998, and a year later was named Thrasher magazine’s skater of the year. At 40, he’s still riding, and has sponsorships with Spitfire wheels and Nike.

Anderson is the highest profile skateboarder to come out. “I think of how I felt when I was younger, totally scared,” Anderson said. “A lot of these kids who don’t have hope are really scared to death. To hear what I went through, and that everything got better for me, and I got a lot happier and felt more free and didn’t have all this shame buried in my body, you become a happier person. So to convey that message is really important to me.”

He added: “I consider myself a skateboarder first, gay second. I’m a skater, that’s all I know.”