Gary Speed - Latest rumour?

Oh my god, that's awful!

Have seen many potential "explanations", none of which are worth the attention until something more definite emerges (IF something more definite emerges).

Jeez if thats true then I hope those responsible feel suitably ashamed of themselves. When did it become acceptable to hound someone to this point? In some cases I agree that they put themselves out there in the public eye so can't complain when people show an interest in their private lives but this man was just doing his job and loving football. Why do we need to know or care what he did behind closed doors??

Was just saying Footlong

This.

On Saturday morning I had a call from a friend on mine whose wife works for one of the tabloids. Amongst other subjects I was told something about Gary Speed that wasn't in the public domain. Hearing of his death on Sunday was shocking and makes me wonder how much truth there was in what I was told.

If it's as I suspect, I hope there's a hack out there having a very dark day in their soul.

It's a very sad thing to happen and my thoughts are with his family and friends who must be distraught.

If there IS something on its way to publication (either formally or informally), and if it IS anything like Claire proposes, it says something pretty dreadful about society, both general society that hunger for such details and sporting society that an intelligent, rational man could feel ashamed/stigmatised for something like this.

I'd be pointing my finger at more than just a story-driven reporter.

?

Shocking and disgusting. Although it also means rather than face whatever it was he'd rather leave his children to grow up Fatherless which is selfish as well as tragic ☹️

I don't think it's a case of he'd rather. He obviously felt backed into a corner and that there was no way out for him. I don't think he saw it as having two options to choose from.

Fair point, bad choice of words on my part.

It caused such an argument on H's FB yesterday. The condo went like this:

H's Status: Gary Speed RIP

M: A few people have this as their status, who was he mate?

H: Welsh Football Manager - took his own life at 42. Really sad news.

M: Oh no he must have been really desperate to have done that.

C: M, you should try googling him first instead of being so insensitive.

M & C are both women and they don't know each other. M ended up really upset over this and C reckons she cried herself to sleep because H told her she was out of order. Fb for you!

Ohhh I hope this isn't true. Not least because a man has lost his life over it, but also because it is a sad indictment of today's society if we're still believed to be so outraged by homosexuality that it could drive someone to take their own life. I can't even begin to imagine how scared he would have to be of a revelation like that for suicide to seem the only alternative.

Please don't let it be true :-(

Even if it is true I don't think we, as general people, really deserve to know it. It's got nothing to do with us. If my sister/brother/cousin/whatever committed suicide, the last thing I'd want is for everyone to be talking about it and for the whole world to find out WHY. It's heartbreaking enough for the family without the media sticking their ugly noses in!

I have just had to cull 2 'friends' from FB for this beauty...

Garry Speed...???? Hmmm na.! Ye its bad. But how about showin some respect and attention for those died and continued to die fighting for queen and country.. Jus shows wer peoples prioritys lie nowa days.!!
R.I.P TO ALL THOSE FALLEN BRITISH AND AMERICAN SOLDIERS..! Who die not out of choice

Must be a copy and paste job going round...

Totally agree.

Sort of along these lines, but I hope the outcome of the Leveson inquiry is to find some way to make the media morally accountable for incidents like this and other invasions of privacy.

I had lots of those kind of statuses when Amy Winehouse died.

I just don't get it.

Why can you not have compassion for both instances? It doesn't have to be one or the other.

How horrible :-(

I don’t know how to say this without it sounding rubbish… where is Footlong when you need her? Basically we have remembrance day in honor of all our amazing soldiers who have died at war, we have charities we have lots of events throughout the year to remember these amazing heroes and every year I get very emotional (especially on remembrance Sunday) These people that are in the public eye like GS that die receive so much speculation because I guess you almost feel like you know them to a degree, they are constantly on the tv, radio basically in your face, and you grow up hearing their names and reading about what they do throughout their lives but I would never cry over hearing of one of their deaths, yes its tragic yes I spare a thought over their families but I think it is so unfair to say that we shouldn’t speak about their deaths because we don’t spare a thought for our soldiers because I know we as a country we never forget our soldiers. I hope you can get what I’m trying to say. These people infuriate me! What a presumption based on somebodys FB status just because it says RIP ??, how can you possibly compare?!

FB is so awful in situations like this. OH (goodness knows why) posted something about what a legend GS was, but how cruel to do such a thing where his children and wife would be likely to find him. Cue tons of responses now having a go at OH for daring to say a word against what GS did. OH does have a point, of all the places to choose to take your life, if you have decided that is the only option for you, right there in the family home is traumatic for his loved ones. My mum's friend's first husband did this and left her to find his body, and she has never gotten over it or or even been able to have one night's solid sleep - this is after years of intense therapy. If these rumours are the reason behind his suicide, then I hope whoever was planning to release something is feeling a smidgen of what GS must have been feeling. Mainly I hope his children did not have to see it.

The thought behind those statuses tend to be on my Facebook make my blood boil- The "UK soldiers deserve maxium respect" type of group has a very valid viewpoint- but a skewed following- pack mentality from what I have seen in some cases. I cant stand those sort of statuses. Soldiers do a good job- well done. Sometimes they die at work- tragic for thier families and loved ones. People in civvy street die too, we just dont have the media focus when its a"normal" person as opposed to a military person. 2 people died in my company last year in thier day to day role - just as tragic for thier family as a soliders, as it is for Gary Speeds?

A death is a death at the end of the day. Lets hope the truth will out.

Morals aren't black and white though. How can you make someone "morally accountable"?

If a hack said to him "I'm going to release this story about you, do you have a comment?" and he kills himself, what has been done that's illegal? Yes it is immoral and yes it's not in the public interest as far as I can see but it's not illegal so how can they be made accountable?

I'm also watching the Leveson Inquiry with great interst, there are so many horrible stories from celebs today including Charlotte Church's Dad's affair, Mum's suicide and her pregnancy and kidnap plot etc and Anne Diamond who wrote to the editor of every newspaper pleading with them to respect her dignity by staying away from her baby son's funeral. They didn't. It's sickening and I really hope this results in a revolution in the way our whole press is run.

With a big stick? ? Nah, in all seriousness I don't know. But there is a vulture-like approach to tabloid media that is more concerned with sensationalism and selling copies of the paper than actually reporting newsworthy information in a sensitive and dignified manner. Something, somehow needs to be done about that. I'm a huge advocate of freedom of the press but there needs to be a degree of self-restraint among journalists that just isn't happening at the moment.

I may get flamed for this, but I think it's disgusting that people are speculating as to why someone killed themselves. I saw these rumours all over Twitter last night and thought that it was wrong to speculate as to why Gary killed himself so soon after he chose to go down that path.

I am a huge gossip, but I fail to see why this is any of our business. A family are trying to come to terms with the loss of their husband, son, brother and more importantly, dad - people shouldn't be making it any harder for them by repeating rumours.

If it turns out that the rumours are true, fair enough talk about them but until then respect should be shown to Gary and his family.

This with bells on!

It makes me sick that people find it ok to gossip/brag about things like this.

Whose been bragging?

Its all over FB/Twitter people saying they know. It drives me mad!

Repeating idle speculation and gossip makes you no better than the journalists.

It has already been mentioned on the original thread that there are a few hitchers who feel very affected by the news and I think in light of that, this thread is particularly insensitive.

@StupidLamb, I thought you meant someone here was bragging. @Mrs C, I feel quite affected by the death of Gary Speed but unfortunately it won't stop the general public speculating over his death, whether I like it or not.

I just would have thought that regular users of OT would have a little more tact.

I don't think that this thread was started/intended as a '?You'll never guess what the latest rumour is about GS!!!!' More as a point of how low journalism has stooped if this what they need to do to satisfy the publics need for gossip.

I am far from a gossip, I don't buy or read newspapers or magazines, and I don't go on Twitter. It just doesn't interest me what 'celebrities' are up to. But when someone who is high profile dies, however they die, people are always going to want to know how/why. It's never going to be a case of being told that GS has died, from suicide, and that is accepted with no further questions asked.

I can see how this thread may have been mistaken to be 'fuelling rumours'. I had not, still haven't, heard the rumour that CL mentioned. And I suppose if I had then gone on to pass this news on to my H, and he told his friends etc who then posted on Twitter then it could spiral onwards. But I haven't, as I wouldn't speculate on anthing like that. And I don't think that was the intention of the thread.

I completely agree.