10 Things You Didn't Know About Pat Patterson
2. His Partner Of 40 Years Passed Away In 1998
It was in the final episode of WWE Network's brilliant Legends House series that Pat Patterson publicly came out as gay. In the years since then, most notably in his 2016 book Accepted, Patterson had detailed how he largely kept this information out of the public eye for fear of how it may have affected his career.
While we've sadly now lost Pat, he himself tragically lost his partner Louie Dondero back in 1998. The two had been together for 40 years by the time of Louie's passing, with his death coming just a matter of hours before the King of the Ring '98 PPV.
For 13 years, Mick Foley - who battled the Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell match that night - felt extreme guilt that one of his bumps from that night may have caused Louie to suffer the heart attack that took his life. Mick was only able to find peace with that situation when Pat eventually informed Foley that the passing had happened before the PPV went on the air.
As Pat himself wrote:
“He'd harbored that guilt for 13 years. That day I laughed for the first time while speaking about Louie. I needed that. Mick, thank you, my friend.”