Nigel Owens has opened up on the lengths he went to in a bid to conceal he was gay, once ordering a date to hide in a restaurant bathroom when Wales international Dwayne Peel walked through the door.
Owens revealed he took the extreme step as he feared the former scrum-half finding out at a time when he felt he couldn't share who he really was with the rest of the world.
The referee has this week been in Ireland for the launch of Europe's largest LGBT+ inclusive rugby tournament - the Union Cup - which heads to Dublin in June.
As part of the launch of the event, Owens has been speaking about his own experiences and the difficulty of coming out as gay while working in sport.
Appearing on Ireland's Ray D'Arcy Show on Monday, 47-year-old Owens - who came out around 14 years ago - recalled an incident in a Swansea Pizza Hut.
"I remember going on a date with one guy one time", Owens said
"While I was just sitting in the Pizza Hut in Swansea, Dwayne Peel walked in, ex-Welsh international who lived up the road from me, and his girlfriend at the time, Jessica, who's his wife now.
"They walked into Pizza Hut and I thought 'oh my god, if they see me here with this guy, they're going to guess something'.
"So I told him 'look, you've got to go to the toilet'. So he went to the toilet and hid.
"The pizzas came to the table while I was chatting to Dwayne.
"There were two twelve-inch pizzas. 'Who's the other pizza for, then?' he said. I said 'it's just a mate'.
"He stayed in the toilet, I went to the toilet and said 'look, you can't come back to the table, you've got to go out and I'll meet you outside'.
"I made an excuse and sort of went, and that was the end of that date, and it went downhill from there.
"You were living a lie, and living in constant fear."
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Owens was asked if he had any regrets, and while the referee admits there's no doubt life changes, he's happy with how things have turned out.
"It does make things a bit more difficult and it does make your life more complex, there's no doubt about that, particularly if you're a referee as well at that higher level.
"But I don't have no regrets, no. I couldn't have carried on the way I was, living a lie, and being scared about being found out, worrying if I was able to carry on refereeing in the macho world of rugby.
"Unless you're happy within yourself and allowed to be yourself within the environment that you are living, working, or in my case, which was sport, then there's no way you can be happy within your life. And unless you're happy within yourself and happy within your life, you can't be the best at what you can be and excel to your potential in whatever you're doing. I was lucky enough that the rugby community allowed me to be myself and I was treated the same as everybody else."
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The Union Cup will be held at Dublin City University on June 8 and 9, with 45 teams from 15 countries expected to participate. The two-day event aims to make rugby accessible for LGBT people, and will feature a women’s tournament for the first time this year.
Owens, the current world record holder for most test matches refereed, will be officiating the final in June and said it was a "great pleasure and honour" to launch the event.
"There are various different reasons why somebody in the LGBT community may find it difficult to play within their local community game, whether it's because they may not feel comfortable in that environment, maybe they feel they're not up to playing that level of rugby, whether they think the environment not welcoming to them, although in most clubs, it is an exclusive for all, which is a good thing.
"They may feel more comfortable in playing with their friends within the LGBT community environment. Bringing the cup here in June as well is a hugely positive step for everybody involved, across the whole of the rugby community."
