Greg Louganis was the greatest diver in American Olympic history. He won two gold medals, one in platform and one in springboard, in each of two successive Olympics, 1984 and 1988. He also was the most prominent athlete of his generation to come out as gay.  And that goes a long way toward explaining why he didn’t get the level of adoration and wealth of some other Olympic heroes.

Louganis publicly came out as gay in 1994, though his swimming teammates and those closest to him knew of his sexual orientation. A year later, he revealed he had been living with AIDS. 

“He was at the center of an explosive controversy, accused of possibly transmitting HIV to other divers when he injured his head at the 1988 Olympics and bled into the pool. How HIV is transmitted was well-understood by 1995, and the CDC said that chlorine kills the virus, that it was diluted in thousands of gallons of water, and that it can’t be spread to people who don’t have open wounds themselves.” (Alex Bollinger, LGBTQ Nation, March 20, 2019

Scott M. Reid  of Freedom News Service (Aug 14, 2009) would later write of Louganis’ post-Olympic experience: “He had spent years trying to build walls around the different parts of his life. Instead, he created a maze, a tortured track through depression, abusive relationships, betrayal, alcohol and substance abuse, certain that it led not to an opening but a dead end.”

One of his problems was an abusive relationship. A story in the Guardian by Chris Godfrey (July 9, 2024) describes that:

“Shortly before the Los Angeles Olympics, Louganis met James ‘Jim’ Babbitt at a bar. They began dating, and before long Babbitt became Louganis’s manager.

“The relationship was abusive. In their seven years together, Babbitt drove a wedge between Louganis and his friends and family. He cheated on him, and Louganis would later find out that Babbitt was a sex worker. In one incident, Babbitt raped Louganis at knife-point at home.

“Towards the end of their relationship, Louganis became suspicious of Babbitt’s handling of his finances. A closer look revealed the extent of Babbitt’s deceit: he had transferred most of Louganis’s earnings into his own name, leaving Louganis with just $2,000. In 1989, Louganis ended the relationship and obtained a restraining order. Babbitt’s response was to threaten to out Louganis as HIV positive. The dispute was settled out of court; when Babbitt finally moved out of Louganis’s home, he defecated in the pool.”

Babbitt died of AIDS related causes in 1990.

A 2015 HBO documentary about Louganis touched on his financial issues.

“… it begins with Louganis dealing with bill collectors, creditors, and a bank that’s about to foreclose on the house he’s lived in for 28 years. He’s broke. Not because, like many former stars, he snorted all his massive earnings or pissed it away on reckless adventures. No, in part, Louganis is broke because he was never really rich. An out gay, poz athlete — and even before that, a teen athlete that was perceived to be gay —Louganis never got the big endorsement deals that Jenner and Mary Lou Retton and other all-American types did, even after he won Olympic gold.” (Diane Anderson-Minshall, hivplusmag.com, Aug.  20 2015)

Louganis himself would later say: “A lot of Olympians, they don’t talk…about how after your Olympics are over and that if you’re successful, you have this high-high, but then you have this low-low. Because it’s the question of, ‘Now what? Who am I? What worth do I have?’” (Scott Collins Aug, 4, 2015, Los Angeles Times)

‘Now what’ for Louganis involved dogs, some acting, advocacy, and eventually finding his way back to the pool. In Chris Godfrey’s Guardian story, Louganis talks about how he went to the dogs. 

“‘I’ve always done better with animals than I have people,’ he says. ‘It’s where I felt trust and honesty.’ Behind Louganis is a huge painting of him with two of his late dogs: Nipper, a jack russell terrier, and Freeway, a great dane. ‘Those two are my true-heart dogs. They were the reason I got up when I was going through HIV treatments, and through all that they were right by my side.’

“Louganis is the co-author of For the Life of Your Dog, a comprehensive guide to dog ownership, and trains dogs for dog agility competitions. ‘The dogs love it. They’re having fun. And, yeah, I want to be the best that I can be for them.’”

Louganis had majored in theater in college and he had a number of acting roles in movies and in plays.  Perhaps most notably he played the role of Darius in the off-Broadway play ‘Jeffrey’ in 1983, a play about living with AIDS. He had a starring role in another off-Broadway play about gay life, ‘The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me,’ two years later. 

And Louganis eventually found his way back to the pool. 

In 2010, the New York Times reported: “Greg Louganis, a four-time Olympic gold medalist, will make his debut as a mentor to up-and-coming Americans at this weekend’s USA Diving Grand Prix at the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center in Florida. His involvement comes nearly 22 years after he defended his gold medals in 3-meter springboard and 10-meter platform at the 1988 Seoul Games.”

In 2011 he was hired by SoCal Divers to coach aspiring athletes. And NBC Los Angeles broadcast this report in 2012. “Now, at age 52, he’s trying to help return US diving to glory. For the first time since retiring from diving after the 1988 Olympics, Louganis is serving as a mentor for American divers.”

Along the way Louganis has continually supported and advocated for LGBTQ organizations and those helping people with AIDS. During a visit to the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center last year, he had this to say about Gov. DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” law that started the right-wing governor’s feud with Disney. 

“The schools are exactly the place, Louganis believes, where it’s paramount not to sweep ‘LGBTQ’ under the rug.

“‘It should be discussed,’ Louganis said. ‘That’s causing a lot of pain and suffering for young gay kids who are trying to find themselves. There’s a huge, huge influx of suicides that happen because of this stupidity.’” (Marc Berman, Palm Beach Post, Jan. 28, 2023 )

Berman also noted that “he recently announced he would be auctioning off three Olympic medals (1976 silver, 1984 and 1988 golds) with part of the proceeds going to charity, including the Damien Center — the largest AIDS care provider in Indiana.” You can see the Olympic medals put up for action at https://greglouganis.com/auction-items/.

Eventually the accolades came his way. 

In 2013, he was inducted into the California Sports Hall of Fame.

In 2017 he was named Grand Marshall of the Rose Parade.

In 2013 he was inducted in the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame.

In 2016, this long overdue announcement was aired on NPR’s All Things Considered:

“Wheaties announced that Louganis — who is openly gay and HIV-positive — along with two other former Olympians, hurdler Edwin Moses and swimmer Janet Evans, will be featured on the cereal boxes as part of the revamped ‘legends’ series.

“General Mills spokesman Mike Siemienas told NPR he couldn’t provide an answer as to why Louganis wasn’t on the box previously because no one who was involved in those decisions still worked at the company. Siemienas said a committee is responsible for determining which athletes are on the boxes.”

Louganis had this to say in an interview for the Harvard Business Review:  

“A reporter in Chicago contacted Wheaties back in the 1980s to ask why I hadn’t been on a box, and the response to him at the time was ‘We didn’t feel that he fulfilled our demographics,’ which was basically a nice way of saying, ‘It’s rumored that he’s gay.’ 

“‘It’s more meaningful now than it would have been in my heyday, because I’m being embraced as a whole person. I’m 56, a gay man, living with HIV, happily married. Who would have imagined that back in the 1980s? I also did some research and found that General Mills is ranked very high in terms of human rights: They have a diversity foundation, and they do a lot for the LGBT community. So the times have changed. We’ve just come so far.’”

In 2015 Louganis told Rick Bentley of the Fresno Bee: “I was diagnosed with HIV six months prior to the Olympic Games in 1988. And so honestly, I knew those were my last competitive dives because we still viewed HIV/AIDS as a death sentence, and I never thought I’d see 30.

“And then 30 goes by. And then 40 goes by. I’m 55.” 

And now he’s 64. Whatever happened to Greg Louganis? “He was a hero for many in the late 1980’s, but in a way, it has taken even more effort and honesty, to become the hero in his own life that he is today.” (David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle, July 30, 2015)

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Note on links in story. No links are provided for stories from the New York Times since these stories are behind a paywall. Other newspaper and wire service stories cited without a link were accessed through newspapers.com.

See also:

Whatever Happened To? Mary Lou Retton

Whatever Happened To? Lance Armstrong