Petrelis Files

NFL Hunk Outed as Gay
& Living on the DL

(Ovie Mughelli)

Until yesterday I never heard the name Ovie Mughelli. He's a young and hunky football player for the Atlanta Falcons, living on the down low, and is generating quite a bit of blogosphere interest over an outing campaign started by the MissJia.com site. An gay ex-boyfriend of Mughelli's spilled some beans about his alleged affair with the sexy footballer, posted Tuesday on that site, generating more than 160 comments, but everything was coy and he wasn't named:

This relationship goes back to late 2001. He was a junior football player in college in _____. It did not begin as a sexual relationship, we actually started as very good friends. He always told me about his girlfriends, and would often seek relationship advice. [...] Things didn’t become serious or sexual until February 2002. He called 3 days after Valentine’s Day to tell me his girlfriend broke up with him. He was devastated and heartbroken, and requested I meet him at our mutual location in ____________ since it was an equal travel distance for both of us.

We met in ___________ and things were normal as usual; we hung out, grabbed drinks, and talked about his ex-girflriend situation. When I got back to my hotel room, we just chilled, drank, and talked about his ex-girlfriend some more. This time, it was different. He asked me to give him a massage, I didn’t ask to do it, and was actually a little uncomfortable that he asked because I made it a point to not make him feel uncomfortable by being around me. I was and have always been a private person, even though we weren’t together like that at the time. I knew he was a football player, and being platonic friends with a gay man at that time, hell, even now, can ruin careers for whatever reason. I didn’t want people to make any assumptions of him based on his friendship with me. Up until this point, we were NOT lovers. However, this night, a massage, led to him taking his shirt off (not at my request), then to more intimate affection. It was this night that we first became sexually involved. [...]

Tongues started wagging after that post hit the web, and not just over his hot bod, with bloggers asking if rumors of Mughelli's gayness were true. Football fans, which doesn't include me, were able to discern from MissJia.com's clues who the player was. Then on Wednesday, MissJia.com flat out named Mughelli and also shared some sexy pics and receipts from the ex:

Aside from the pictures that the anonymous writer sent showing Ovie getting comfy in a hotel (and showing off his bod), he also sent in a receipt for a rental car, with Ovie’s name on it that also shows the last four of the credit card number. [...]

I received a TON of emails and DMs (on Twitter) asking me if it was indeed Ovie and if so, they had a story to tell too. Apparently, the person who wrote this letter is not the only guy that Ovie possibly sexed up while they provided him with money. Wow.

As you can imagine, this story is of great interest to the gay Outsports.com site, according to the straight Deadspin.com site:

The boys over at Outsports have inquired about the story as well, but won’t run with it unless the unnamed man steps forward. Outsports’ Cyd Zeigler said he did speak with the Mughelli’s publicist, who politely told him that it’s being handled by the lawyers right now.

My gut tells me this outing is not over by a long shot, while I also expect we'll see a few more shirtless pics of Mughelli hitting the web as the rumors continue to swirl about his sexual orientation.