Tom Daley: What Really Went On There, We Only Have This Excerpt

QUIZ QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Which of these statements came first?

1 – “Hello, is that The Sun? Would you be interested in a photo of Tom Daley at our local gay club in Plymouth?”

2 – “Hello Tom, Sun newsdesk here. Do you want to tell us what you were doing in Zeros club Plymouth on Saturday night?”

3 – [via Twitter] “Got something I need to say…not been an easy decision to make, hope you can support me! :) ”

❏ On Monday morning at 11 o’clock Britain’s 19-year-old Olympics diver Tom Daley posted his confessional video on YouTube telling the world he was “dating a guy”. The global media coverage has been massive and the video has clocked 6 million views in two days. In it he said: “In an ideal world I wouldn’t be doing this video because it shouldn’t matter. But recently I was misquoted in an interview and it made me feel really angry… Now I feel ready to talk about my relationships.” Throughout the brave five-minute video message, recorded on his own phone, he was understandably nervous, and by the end seemed palpably relieved.

The interview that had angered him appeared in the Daily Mirror on September 8 when he was quoted denying the suggestion that he was gay.

EIGHT WEEKS PASSED – THEN SUDDENLY…

At about 2am this Sunday, Dec 1, Tom Daley visits his hometown gay club Zeros with some friends and is photographed at the club with a shot girl. That morning the photograph is published by Zeros nightclub on its Facebook page with the message: “Let’s hope Tom Daley survived meeting our very own J******* last night !!!” (The shot girl later complained about her picture being published).

At 1pm Sunday the first of several Facebookers shares the picture.

At 3pm Sunday Daley tweets “So lucky to have such a supportive mum! I love you!” and he posts a smashing picture of himself with Debbie at Instagram.

Then at about 5pm Sunday Daley makes a special visit to his grandparents nearby in Devon to break his news to them, which they later tell the Daily Mail came “out of the blue”.

Early on Monday morning he tells the rest of his family. “I can count the number of people I’ve told on my hand,” he says later.

At 11am Monday, Daley goes public with his video on YouTube and is immediately reported by BBC News and the rest of the media and is soon trending on Twitter.

At 7pm Monday The Sun, Britain’s biggest selling tabloid newspaper, is going to press with the detailed “exclusive” report for Tuesday’s issue revealing the name of the “Pop hunk pal who helped dive star come out”. The new news here claims that Daley was inspired to do so after “developing a close friendship with gay former S Club Juniors idol Aaron Renfree”. Mike Spencer, the gay TV producer of the Only Way is Essex, is reported to be another of Daley’s “close friends”. And a Zeros barman reports that while in the nightclub Tom was “not surprisingly being quite flirty”. It would have taken some very nifty footwork to pull that lot together had the Sun’s exclusive research been a same-day response to the video as breaking news!

Eight weeks had passed since the Mirror interview angered Tom. Yet suddenly within a single day this weekend our hero decided that he not only felt ready to share his secret with the world, but first to do so at high speed with his mother, his grandparents, his extended family. It’s hard not to believe sudden pressure was brought to bear on the teenage sports star to spill the beans.

Shapers Of The 80s.

Fagburn can not verify any of this, but the 'outed by social media then threatened by The Sun' sounds more than plausible.

Thanks - as ever - to Darren for the tip. x

PS 'The phone call to Tom Daley’s biographer came a few weeks before the start of the 2012 Olympics. Chas Newkey-Burden recalls how a reporter from a red-top Sunday newspaper was on the phone, asking him about internet rumours that the then 18-year-old diver was in a long-standing gay relationship with a fellow member of the British diving team...' Daily Mail, and Charles NB, but even so, again this is quite plausible.