It’s called… sarcasm!

Gus Kenworthy was honored with the Laces of Unity Award at a Los Angeles Lakers game this week. The award was presented by NBA legend Jason Collins. In a post shared via Instagram Story, Kenworthy spoke about receiving this honor and then posted an image of him standing alongside Collins.

The Olympian wrote in that picture:

“And I’m especially honored to have had the first openly gay NBA player, Jason Collins, present me with the award! Jason is extremely tall. For comparison, I'm 6’4”.”

However, it seems like a lot of Kenworthy’s followers took his caption to heart and actually believed that he was claiming he was 6’4”. In response, the Olympian shared a video calmly addressing the situation.

“You guys. I’m actually kind of shocked at how many people have responded to my story and been like, ‘6’4”? You’re not 6’4”!’ I know,” Kenworthy explained. “It was a joke. I’m 5’10”. If I was 6’4”, Jason Collins would be, like, eight and a half feet tall. It was… I wasn’t being serious.”

A person’s height can be a “big deal” when it comes to gay culture as of late, even though there are a lot of problematic discourses surrounding those ideals and/or expectations for one’s height.

In this particular case, it was bizarre for anyone to believe that Kenworthy, an Olympian, would be the average height of a basketball player. Given that he also shared a picture standing right next to Collins – and looking much shorter than the NBA star – it was clear that Kenworthy was just kidding by his assertion of being 6’4”.

Apparently, people on social media are truly unable to think past what they see on posts shared by celebrities. Well, at least this controversy has now been put to rest!

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