Ian Thorpe declines offer of pill-like object at Mardi Gras

EXACTLY what was the white, pill-like object that Ian Thorpe was offered ahead of Saturday night’s gay and lesbian Mardi Gras parade? Was it a breath mint? Or, as his manager suggested, an aspirin?

Ian Thorpe reject the pill-like object offered to him / Picture: Matrix Media Group

• Ian Thorpe snubbed AOC Mardi Gras float for private party
• Thorpe: ‘I was bullied out of the closet’
• Friends fear Thorpe will be shattered if new relationship fails

EXACTLY what was the white, pill-like object that Ian Thorpe was offered ahead of Saturday night’s gay and lesbian Mardi Gras parade? Was it a breath mint? Or, as his manager suggested, an aspirin?

Speculation was mounting yesterday about how the Olympian celebrated his second Mardi Gras since coming out in 2014.

Thorpe was photographed on Saturday night on a street in Point Piper, when a friend removed a white, tablet-shaped object from his brown leather wallet and attempted to put it in Thorpe’s mouth.

Ian Thorpe is offered and rejects a pill-like object by a friend, as Thorpe’s boyfriend Ryan Channing stands nearby / Picture: Matrix Media Group

The swimmer refused to take it.

The friend pictured is ­a former partner of model Ryan Channing, Thorpe’s boyfriend of several weeks.

The friend denied any involvement in the matter.

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said yesterday.

Thorpe’s manager James Erskine issued similar vehement denials, saying there was no evidence that the 33-year-old had done anything wrong.

“Ian didn’t take pills last night,” Mr Erskine said.

Thorpe and friends, including Channing, were gathered in the street in the exclusive Sydney suburb, just doors down from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s house about 6pm.

A friend takes out a pill-like object / Picture: Matrix Media Group

Thorpe went on to spend his Mardi Gras partying at the exclusive Belvedere private party at a residence in Paddington, although organisers of the Australian Olympic Committee’s Mardi Gras float had put the call out to Thorpe.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph last month, AOC float organiser and fellow Olympian Daniel Kowalski said: “It’s obvious who I’d like to be there. But I don’t want to put Ian on the spot. It’s not something you can rush into.”

Diver Matthew Mitcham, who was Australia’s first openly gay Olympian when he competed at the 2008 games, agreed.

The friend appears to eat the pill-like object / Picture: Matrix Media Group

“It would be really good if he did,” Mitcham said.

“The last we heard of him in the media he was having a bit of trouble adjusting to an ‘out’ lifestyle.”

Mitcham’s concerns have been echoed by those close to Thorpe, with friends expressing concern over new beau Channing, who is a law student and model.

The relationship is Thorpe’s first public one since he came out as being gay in 2014.

The friend gives Ian Thorpe a hug / Picture: Matrix Media Group

The normally media- shy swimmer has uncharacteristically featured in several photos since he started dating Channing.

“Thorpie is a bit naive and Sydney’s gay scene is certainly not for the faint-hearted,” a source recently told The Daily Telegraph.

“For now he’s very happy and his happiness is paramount.

“Straight or gay, a new love affair doesn’t always have a happy ending and a very public break-up, if that’s where this ends one day, will be harder for Ian than for most.”

Channing is signed to exclusive Sydney modelling agency Chic.

His high-profile lifestyle has occasionally caught the eye of the media.

His notable connections include singer Samantha Jade, Sunrise executive producer Michael Pell and designer Adrian Norris.

NEWLY-OUT THORPIE IS CLEARLY HIS OWN MAN

Annette Sharp COMMENT

ONE week after saying he was “bullied” to come out as a gay man — something he did finally at age 31 in 2014 — Ian Thorpe celebrated the annual gay and lesbian Mardi Gras as a proud gay man on Saturday night.

Ian Thorpe at the Belvedere Private Party on Saturday night. Picture: Ken Butti

Unwilling to spend the night with 30 fellow gay Olympians and Paralympians on-board an Australian Olympic Committee float organised by swimmer Daniel Kowalski, Thorpe elected instead to spend the night quietly with his new tribe, including boyfriend Ryan Channing and Channing’s former boyfriend.

The group, along with another male and two women, headed to a private Mardi Gras party in Longworth Ave, Point Piper, about 6pm.

But they didn’t go in. The ever-present media apparently caused them to beat a hasty retreat at the last minute.

Prior to that it seems that someone in his crew offered him a white pill-shaped object.

From the paparazzi’s position it was unclear what it was, although what was clear was that Thorpe rejected it.

Thorpe is clearly a man who knows what he wants, and what he doesn’t.

He is a five-time gold medallist who reached the pinnacle of success as a world class elite athlete while still in his teens — all with cameras trained on him.

A man who has publicly battled and acknowledged mental health issues and depression, all documented by the media.

In short, at 33, he is wiser than his years.

Two weeks ago, this writer observed that some who love Thorpe are newly concerned for him now that he has found love in Sydney, where the recognisable and beloved identity’s every public movement will be photographed and reported.

Thorpe, who is set to host a TV show where playground bullies are monitored on camera, will not be persuaded to do what he doesn’t want to do any more.

Not by gay advocates hoping he’ll join their float, not by the AOC, not by the media, and certainly not by the young avant-garde crew he finds himself hanging with on the fringes of Sydney’s gay hub.