There has also been nonstop speculation since his death that Aaron was gay and desperately tried to keep that part of his life concealed.
“I asked Aaron if he was gay,” Jonathan wrote, recalling that he told his younger brother that he loved him no matter what. “‘Don’t you ever ask me that again,’ Aaron said. ‘If you say that again, I’ll f–king kill you.'”
Shayanna said in 2020 that, while she had a child with Aaron, “I still can’t tell you how he was feeling inside.”
“If he did feel that way or if he felt the urge [to be with men], I wish that I was told,” she said on Good Morning America of the high school sweetheart she’d planned to marry. “I wish that he would have told me because I would not have loved him any differently.”
So while Aaron’s story on its face is gripping, the unanswerable questions about his true self are what spurred a cottage industry in trying to understand him.
“When we talk about authenticity or double lives or secrets, he has no idea who he is,” Zicherman told E!. “He’s drafted to a championship team where he’s expected to be a man.”