Jason Collins has died.
The NBA’s first out gay player passed at age 47 due to brain cancer, his family revealed Tuesday.
“We are heartbroken to share that Jason Collins, our beloved husband, son, brother and uncle, has died after a valiant fight with glioblastoma,” the family said in a statement through the NBA. “Jason changed lives in unexpected ways and was an inspiration to all who knew him and to those who admired him from afar. We are grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers over the past eight months and for the exceptional medical care Jason received from his doctors and nurses. Our family will miss him dearly.”
As Out reported in December, Collins wrote an essay for ESPN that he had been diagnosed with one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer, Stage 4 glioblastoma. In that piece, he warned that without treatment, the cancer would spread quickly enough to kill him within six weeks to three months, but that he was “going to fight it.”
Over the winter, ESPN reports, Collins traveled to Singapore for experimental treatments that are not authorized in the United States. Afterward, he was well enough to attend the NBA All-Star Weekend events in Los Angeles and a game at Stanford University, his alma mater.
However, his cancer recently returned, reports ESPN, and Collins died peacefully at his home in Florida, surrounded by family.
The Associated Press reported that, just last week, Collins was too ill to attend an award ceremony in Cleveland, where he was honored with the inaugural Bill Walton Global Champion Award at the Green Sports Alliance Summit. His twin brother, former NBA player Jarron Collins, accepted the award in his place.
“I told my brother this before I came here: He’s the bravest, strongest man I’ve ever known,” Jarron Collins said at the event.
Collins came out publicly in 2013, becoming not just the first NBA player to come out, but also the first active athlete in one of North America’s four major sports leagues to publicly acknowledge he was gay. In his career, he played for the Nets, Grizzlies, Timberwolves, Hawks, Celtics, and Wizards before retiring in 2014.
Collins has been in a relationship with film producer Brunson Green since 2014. The two married in May 2025, just a few months before he began experiencing complications from cancer.
His loved ones revealed the diagnosis in a September 2025 statement that was left purposely vague, as Collins shared in his ESPN piece that the symptoms had incapacitated him and left him “unable to speak for myself.” But when he wrote last year’s essay, he found the words to place everything in perspective.
“When I came out publicly as the first active gay basketball player in 2013, I told a lot of the people closest to me before I did so,” he wrote. “I wasn’t worried it would leak before the story came out, because I trusted the people I told. And guess what? Nothing leaked. I got to tell my own story, the way I wanted to. And now I can honestly say, the past 12 years since have been the best of my life. Your life is so much better when you just show up as your true self, unafraid to be your true self, in public or private. This is me. This is what I’m dealing with.“
“It’s a sad day for all of us associated with Stanford basketball when we lose one of the program’s greats,” said Mike Montgomery, former head coach of Stanford Men’s Basketball, in a statement posted online. “We all have great memories of Jason and the kind of person he was. It’s hard to separate Jarron and Jason because they thought so alike, but even though he was an identical twin, Jason was unique in his own way. The impact he had on Stanford was immense, as he could match up against anyone in the country because he was big, smart, strong and skilled, all while being a very bright and nice person. I’ll miss him dearly, and my heart goes out to the Collins family, because Sara and I know what it’s like to lose a child.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, honored Collins as “a giant” in the LGBTQ+ movement after news of his death.
“To call Jason Collins a groundbreaking figure for our community is simply inadequate. We truly lost a giant today,” Robinson said in a statement. “He came out as gay — while still playing — at a time when men’s athletes simply did not do that. But as he powerfully demonstrated in his final years in the league and his post-NBA career, stepping forward as he did boldly changed the conversation. He was and will always be a legend for the LGBTQ+ community, and we are heartbroken to hear of his passing at the young age of 47. Our hearts go out to his family and loved ones. We will keep fighting on in his honor until the day everyone can be who they are on their terms.”
Collins is survived by his husband, parents Portia and Paul Collins, and his brother Jarron, who was most recently an assistant coach with the New Orleans Pelicans.
This article originally appeared on Out: Jason Collins, gay NBA trailblazer, dies at 47