Scorpio Sky Addresses Homophobic Slurs From Several Years Back, Sonny Kiss Issues Statement
As seen above, AEW World Tag Team Champion Scorpio Sky of SoCal Uncensored recently spoke with Chris Van Vliet for an interview on a number of topics.
OutSports.com picked up on how during the interview with Van Vliet, Sky addressed homophobic slurs he made on Twitter back in 2011, admittedly during a "dark time" in his 17 year career. Sky said he learned a lot from the situation, and he's a much different person now.
"I had some bad decisions that I made where I said some things on Twitter that I shouldn't have said that were very, very inappropriate and ignorant, actually, and it came off as homophobic, and that's a very down point of my career, something I look back on with a lot of regret and at the same time though, I learned a lot from it and I definitely can look back, here we are, this is almost going on ten years later," Sky said.
He continued, "I've learned a lot from it and I'm definitely a different person now than I was then, and I learned that there is certain language that is completely unacceptable and not only in the public eye, but in your personal life as well, and so, it's a situation that I'm very embarrassed about and I look back with a lot of regret but at the same time, I learned from it and became a better person and a more understanding person."
The tweets from Sky resurfaced this year after AEW announced the signing of LGBTQ wrestlers Nyla Rose and Sonny Kiss. Sky thought it was a "real low shot" to try and make Kiss and Rose feel uncomfortable by bringing the tweets up. He revealed that he reached out to Kiss and Rose to explain what had happened.
"There was a situation where not too long after we signed with AEW, someone tweeted at Nyla Rose and Sonny Kiss, and they said, 'How do you feel about having this guy in the company' and, you know, I don't care if someone takes a shot at me, but to try and make someone else feel uncomfortable, I thought was kind of a real low shot," Sky recalled. He continued, "So I reached out to them. I didn't really know them that well at the time but I reached out to them. I said, 'Hey, I had some things that I said almost ten years ago that I'm very embarrassed about and it was very ignorant and very inappropriate and I'm a different person today than I was then and I never want you to feel uncomfortable around me and we can always talk', and they couldn't have been more understanding and open and in my corner and to this day, the three of us are just great close friends."
Sky reiterated how he's a different person now, and is embarrassed for himself and his family when he looks back at the tweets.
"It's been almost 10 years and, you know, I can't say it enough: I'm a different person," Sky said. "I look back at those tweets. I embarrassed myself. I embarrassed my family. It's one of those things where I'm going to have to live with it for the rest of my life. I'm going to look back when I'm 70 years old, the same way I do now, and think 'what an idiot.' Not an idiot for saying it publicly, but an idiot for just saying it? that is wrong in itself. That's something you just definitely can't do.
"There's so much pain and anguish behind that word, and people that have really suffered the same way that my people have suffered. I like to think about is as we are all human beings and if your people suffered and my people suffered and we're all in this together. Life is hard enough. We don't need to make it harder on each other."
Outsports.com reached out to Rose and Kiss for comments on Sky's new comments to Van Vliet, and did not hear back from Rose before press time, but Kiss did send a statement via Direct Message on Twitter.
"I absolutely love Scorpio Sky! We have all had times in our lives where we have said or did things that we regret or are not proud of," Kiss said. "The fact that he is owning up to his wrongdoings and have addressed them publicly says a lot about the type of person he is. We live in a very unforgiving world, but I am a firm believer that everyone can change and do better. If they are willing to, let them. I will never continue to penalize a person who has expressed regret and has a desire to be better!"
The Outsports website previously covered the tweets when they resurfaced at one point in 2012. Their article included the screenshots of the tweets from Sky. You can click these links to see the graphic screen shots: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4.