In an interview with “Dr. Phil,” Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez offered her reaction to rumors that her deceased fiancée, Aaron Hernandez, was gay.
These rumors surfaced after Hernandez, the former New England Patriots tight end-turned-convicted murderer, committed suicide in his prison cell last month.
“I had no indication or any feeling that he was (gay),” Jenkins-Hernandez told Dr. Phil McGraw in a clip released Tuesday morning. “He was very much a man to me. I don’t know where this came from. It’s embarrassing, in a sense. It’s hurtful, regardless if it’s true or not. It’s just not something that I saw. It’s not something that I believe. It’s just not him.”
Jenkins-Hernandez said she heard the rumors from Hernandez’s defense team before his death.
“We had a conversation,” she said. “I asked him if it was true. (He said) that it wasn’t.”
She added: “You never approach any situation by accusing. So I asked, he told me, and that was it. I don’t press any situation.”
Jenkins-Hernandez said she’s never heard of Kyle Kennedy, the man Hernandez allegedly had a relationship with while both were incarcerated at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center.
“I don’t know who this Kyle Kennedy is,” she said. “I’ve never heard of him, honestly. Aaron has never mentioned him. And Aaron liked to be in a single cell, from my knowledge.”
Despite reports to the contrary, Jenkins-Hernandez insisted Hernandez didn’t leave a suicide note to Kennedy.
“There’s nothing for Kyle Kennedy,” she said. “It’s nonexistent.”
Thumbnail photo via Keith Bedford/The Boston Globe via USA TODAY Sports Images
