Gus Kenworthy had already said goodbye to competitive skiing once. Now his decision to keep going has helped international skiing reconsider who gets to come back.

The four-time Olympian is returning to the U.S. ski team after representing Great Britain at Beijing 2022 and Milano Cortina 2026. His return, reported by ESPN on September 24, came with an unusual obstacle.

In 2025, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, FIS, introduced a restriction allowing athletes to change their national affiliation only once. Kenworthy had already moved from the United States to Great Britain in 2019.

U.S. Ski & Snowboard argued that returning to his original team was different from moving to a third country. His first switch had also happened before the restriction existed.

FIS approved his return. It also agreed to change the rule more broadly, allowing athletes to return to their original country after at least four years, provided they meet additional requirements.

“Gus’ case initiated a thought process and a change in thinking,” acting FIS secretary general Urs Lehmann told ESPN.

The change is intended to distinguish a return like Kenworthy’s from repeated moves made to gain a competitive advantage. His case has therefore opened a path that could apply to other athletes, too.

That is a remarkable development in a career many fans thought had reached its final Olympic chapter.

Kenworthy won slopestyle silver for the United States at Sochi 2014 while still closeted. He publicly came out as gay the following year.

By Pyeongchang 2018, he was competing openly. A televised kiss with his then-boyfriend, actor Matt Wilkas, became a memorable moment of gay visibility at the Winter Games.

He subsequently represented Great Britain, the country of his birth and his mother’s home country. After Beijing 2022, he retired.

But the retirement did not last. Kenworthy returned to training and reached a fourth Olympics in 2026, finishing sixth in the men’s halfpipe final. He was 34 at the time.

He turned 35 on October 1. A fifth Games in the French Alps in 2030 would find him aged 38. He has expressed interest in continuing, although an Olympic place is something he would still have to earn.

There is another future taking shape away from the slopes.

On August 4, Gus proposed to Andrew Rigby on an island off Mallorca. The two had first met in Sydney nearly a decade earlier, but their relationship began after they reconnected in 2024.

Andrew supported Gus through his Olympic comeback. After a period of long-distance dating, they made a home together in New York.

For readers who have followed Gus since Sochi, this is more than another change of uniform. The young medalist who was hiding part of his life is now an openly gay veteran athlete, engaged to the man he loves and preparing to compete again for his original team.

The September announcement gives that story a new sporting chapter. His life with Andrew gives it a future beyond competition.

Retirement was real. So was the decision to return. And, apparently, there is still more he wants to do.

📷 @guskenworthy @ariggers

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Will Young had already come out publicly. That didn’t stop someone at his record label from finding a problem with how he sounded on Leave Right Now.

According to Young, the complaint was that his voice sounded “too gay.” He was asked to record it again.

Producer Steve Lipson found a different solution: he sent back exactly the same recording. This time, it was approved.

Young revisits the episode in a new interview with The Independent, published on October 1, ahead of his appearance on Roisin O’Connor’s Good Vibrations podcast.

It’s an absurd little story with an unmistakable point. Nothing about the vocal had changed. The people judging it had simply decided they could accept it.

Young has discussed the incident before. What the new conversation brings is a wider reflection on the restrictions he felt even after coming out.

He won the first series of Pop Idol in 2002 and publicly came out soon afterward. Yet he remembers a proposed concept for the Leave Right Now video involving a female love interest.

His sexuality could be public knowledge while the images around his music still suggested something else.

Young also describes feeling unable to express himself sexually in the way a straight male pop star could. A shirtless straight singer could be considered sexy; he worried that the same gesture from him would be dismissed as camp.

He remembers trying to be “acceptably gay,” comparing the resulting feeling to being a Ken doll.

For readers who spent years working out how much of themselves other people would tolerate, that distinction may feel familiar. Saying you are gay and feeling comfortable showing your attraction, affection or desire can be very different experiences.

The interview also includes a present-day relationship update: Young, now 47, has been with his partner for two years. He reflects on the work involved in opening himself up to a relationship.

Meanwhile, The Evergreen 25th Anniversary Tour will take him around the UK with his band in February and March 2027, revisiting songs including Evergreen, Light My Fire and Leave Right Now.

A quarter-century after the public first voted for him, those songs remain part of his story. So does the producer who understood that the vocal didn’t need fixing.

📷 @willyoungofficial

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Jonathan Bailey leans into the microphone, closes his eyes and delivers a rather persuasive invitation: “Drink from me.”

The recording-booth footage promoting Audible’s new Bram Stoker’s Dracula makes one thing clear: Bailey is giving the vampire a full performance, even when listeners can only hear him.

For fans of the openly gay Bridgerton and Wicked star, it is an appealing introduction to his latest role. The production arrived on October 1, just as Halloween season began.

Bailey plays Count Dracula alongside Ella Purnell as Mina, Aimee Lou Wood as Lucy, Louis Partridge as Jonathan Harker and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Professor Van Helsing. The ensemble also includes David Jonsson, Johnny Flynn and Lesley Manville.

This is a full-cast audio drama, with music and sound design accompanying the performances. Directed by Pet Sematary filmmaker Mary Lambert, it was adapted by Robyn Ahern, with an original score by Ilan Eshkeri.

The story places Mina at the heart of the struggle against Dracula. When her fiancé disappears in Transylvania, she follows letters, diary entries and testimony, trying to understand the threat closing in on the people she loves.

Bailey’s part requires both the charm that draws people toward the Count and the danger beneath it.

In a new interview with Bustle, he discusses the story through desire, fear and the restrictions placed on people’s identities. He connects its Victorian setting with the enduring pressure to suppress what people want and who they are.

He also describes shame as an important part of Dracula’s appeal, and says the intimacy of audio offers a way to reach listeners directly.

That is an interesting perspective from an openly gay actor whose work has often explored longing and the cost of hiding it.

There is also a practical pleasure in the behind-the-scenes material. Bailey tells Bustle that performing without being seen allowed him to commit completely. The promotional footage gives fans a glimpse of that physical commitment: the closed eyes, the movement, the concentration.

A microphone may be the only thing in front of him, but he is clearly doing more than reading words from a page.

For anyone looking for an atmospheric October listen, this Count comes with quite a cast—and a voice that might make you hesitate before reaching for the pause button.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is available on Audible.

📷 @audible

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Before Lil Nas X shared his new song, he shared a message from his mother.

In a voicemail posted to Instagram on September 30, Tamikia Hill encourages her son to keep his head up and keep going.

She reminds him that she loves him, and returns to a saying he had heard from her many times: “Walk by faith, not by sight.”

Nas explained that it was her favorite phrase, adding that its meaning has grown for him as he moves through life.

He announced his mother’s death in August. A little over a month later, her voice helped introduce his return to music.

World’s Greatest!, released October 1, is his first new song of 2026. Its accompanying six-minute video makes room for both the artist he has become and the child he once was.

Directed by Phillip Youmans and filmed in Atlanta, the video opens with Nas rehearsing choreography in a dance studio. From there, it moves between the present and dramatized scenes from his childhood.

The younger version of Nas is part of the film’s storytelling. These are recreated scenes, rather than a collection of childhood home movies.

By the final moments, the video returns to his mother. Her voicemail plays again, and the film closes with a dedication to her.

For an artist whose music and visuals have reached audiences around the world, it is a deeply personal way to begin a new chapter. The encouragement comes from a familiar voice, using familiar words.

Nas’s openness as a gay man has made him an important figure for many queer listeners. Here, the connection also comes through something people across generations may recognize: keeping a recording of someone you love because hearing them still matters.

A voicemail preserves small things that a photograph cannot—the rhythm of a sentence, a family nickname, the way someone says they will check on you again.

In this new release, Nas has chosen to share that part of his mother with the people listening.

Sources: Pitchfork and People.

📷 @lilnasx

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