NBA’s first openly gay player Jason Collins gets married to longtime partner

Former Nets player, and the first openly gay athlete in the NBA, Jason Collins married his longtime partner, Brunson Green, recently. 

The couple reportedly tied the knot over the Memorial Day weekend in a ceremony in Austin, Texas, after the two had been together for more than a decade. 

Collins and Green, a Hollywood producer best known for his work on the film “The Help,” reportedly got engaged in 2023 during Pride Night at a Lakers game. 

Collins came out in a personal essay for Sports Illustrated in 2013, which made him the first openly gay athlete in a major American team sport. 

“When I was younger, I dated women,” he wrote in the essay. “I even got engaged. I thought I had to live a certain way. I thought I needed to marry a woman and raise kids with her. I kept telling myself the sky was red, but I always knew it was blue.”

He had started his NBA career in 2001 with the Nets, who were still in New Jersey at the time, where he spent parts of seven seasons with the organization before stints with the Grizzlies, Timberwolves, Hawks and Celtics. 

Collins returned to the Nets in 2014 for one final run in Brooklyn before retiring that same year. 

Collins started dating Green in 2014 and described how the two met in a Sports Illustrated interview in 2023, according to The Independent. 

“I was dating another guy at the time. I didn’t see Brunson again until we ran into each other at a party three months later. By that point, I was single again,” he said back then.  “Brunson left for Europe the following day, and, while he was overseas, I asked everyone I knew in LA, ‘Have you heard of this guy?’”

The ceremony was attended by family and friends, including longtime teammate Richard Jefferson, according to Outsports. 

Actress Octavia Spencer also posted a picture on Instagram from the day, in which Viola Davis commented on the post. 

“Aaaaahh!!!! Congratulations,” she wrote.