The Aaron Hernandez story: Secret gay lover in prison says ex-footballer proposed marriage to him
Although Aaron Hernandez, the former tight end for New England Patriots, never came out as a homosexual or a bisexual man, a male confidante in prison claimed that he became his lover in the days leading up to the former's suicide in his jail cell, even leading him to write love letters and propose marriage to him.
In 2013, Hernandez was charged for the murder of Odin Lloyd, a semi-professional player who was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancée. Hernandez was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2015 and sentenced to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The conviction came as a shock to many, mainly because no clear motive for the killing was ever established. Kyle Kennedy, aka Pure, a convicted felon serving time in the same jail as Hernandez, opened up about the tainted player in Reelz's docu-series 'Aaron Hernandez's Killing Fields'.
He shared that he and Hernandez grew up in similar neighborhoods, which made them seek out the gang life. They would always talk about "guns and murder and robbery" all day, which came naturally to them. That was how they got close inside prison.
The confidante was also in the same Bloods gang that Hernandez became affiliated with inside prison. After becoming his drug dealer, Kennedy quickly graduated to becoming his business partner. They became so close that the ex-footballer began confessing his deepest darkest secrets to him.
"One day... he just broke down. He started telling me about his past... he told me that a woman, who was close to him and his family molested him when he was a kid and this went on for years. And he didn't wanna tell his mother in fear of whatever the consequence might be," he said.
Kennedy also claimed that Hernandez told him in a letter that he was attracted to men, although he wasn't sure if he was gay.
The sportsman allegedly told him that in order to be physically intimate with his fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins, he always had to think of a man and that Hernandez wanted to come out of the closet in front of the world.
Kennedy claimed that his relationship with Hernandez soon became physical and that the two of them would engage in oral sex once or twice a week, whenever circumstances inside the prison permitted them to sneak around and get some privacy.
Kennedy believed that Hernandez loved him. "He used to tell me he wanted to marry me. That anything I ever wanted in life, he would make sure it came true... my dreams. That kid did everything for me," he said.
Investigators hired by docu-series creators also uncovered that Hernandez used to write love letters to Kennedy while in prison, although his lawyer, Jose Baez, maintains that his client never wrote to any inmates inside the prison.
Baez said that it wasn't a big deal that Hernandez told Kennedy that he loved him because he went around telling everyone he loved them. Kennedy read out one of the letters on camera.
It read: "I just wanted to tell you this morning that I love you and you never have to question us. You told me that you didn't want to be on the block anymore. Did you really mean that? I mean I've said way worse so I understand but still, it made me almost hang myself. I can't even imagine them separating us. I'll feel like I 'm missing all of me. F**k, half of me. I love you that much."
Hernandez killed himself in his prison cell five days after he was acquitted in 2017 for the double homicide of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado.
Kennedy was informed of his death by a mental health worker that he had been working with inside the prison. Kennedy knew that Hernandez had a drug problem and thought his addiction might have had something to do with his suicide.
"The first thing that came to mind was he had to have taken something, done something that altered the way he was thinking because that wasn't him," he said.
One of the possible motives for Hernandez to kill Lloyd could have been because he might have found out about his sexual orientation.