10 Things You Didn't Know About Pat Patterson

2. His Partner Of 40 Years Passed Away In 1998

Pat Patterson
WWE.com

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.”
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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.