Ian Roberts (b. 1965), rugby league great, became the first NRL player to openly identify as gay when he came out in 1995. London-born Roberts grew up in Coogee, went to high school in Maroubra, and qualified as an electrician before being signed to play for the South Sydney Rabbitohs in 1986. Six-foot-five and as swift as he is strong, Roberts soon impressed with his courageous, tough style of play and relentless tackling. But he has since said that the hardman exterior was a smokescreen, his on-field physicality being a way of drawing attention away from rumours about his off-field lifestyle, and of redirecting the anger and self-loathing arising from having to conceal his sexual identity. By the time he signed with the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles in 1990 – a move that made him rugby league's highest paid player – opposition players and fans had already started vilifying him. The same year, Roberts was selected to play State of Origin for the first time and made his Test debut for the Kangaroos against New Zealand. Aged 27, he came out to his parents. Three years later, having previously suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts, Roberts publicly affirmed his sexuality in the hope that he might be a role model for gay teenagers experiencing the same things. Roberts retired from rugby league in 1998 after two seasons with the North Queensland Cowboys and having played nine State of Origin games for New South Wales and thirteen Tests for Australia. Following a successful stint as menswear model, in 2000 he became one of 26 people accepted into the National Institute of Dramatic Art, selected from 1300 applicants. Roberts has quipped that the transition from footy to acting wasn't all that difficult because he had 'acted straight for 25 years', and after graduating from NIDA in 2003 he appeared in feature films, stage productions and television shows in Australia and overseas. In 2017 he joined the NRL float at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and successfully lobbied the NRL to publicly support the YES campaign in the marriage equality plebiscite.
Roberts first modelled for Melbourne artist Ross Watson in 1995. Watson has said he was moved and inspired by Roberts' courage in coming out, and subsequently created a series of paintings of the barely-clad footballer in poses evoking heroic classical statuary. This painting is part of another, later series titled Galerie des Glaces, or Hall of Mirrors, in which Watson has interpolated lithe twentieth-century figures into paintings by Vermeer, Bronzino and other old masters. This portrait of Roberts is 'after' Antoine Coypel (1661–1722), a French painter in the Baroque style whose most famous production is the ceiling of the Chapel at Versailles (1708).
Gift of the artist 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Ross Watson
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