Their kiss had been seen by millions on live television on NFL draft day.

But what viewers did not know was that on the day Michael Sam met boyfriend Vito Cammisano years earlier, Cammisano was dressed as a bunny.

Sam, the first openly gay player in the history of the NFL. and Cammisano met at one of the first big parties he attended in his freshman year at the University of Missouri.

It was a lingerie party and Cammisano, a star swimmer at the school, was dressed as a rabbit with a bushy white tail.

‘We didn’t start off as huge fans of each other,’ Sam says in a new Out Magazine article.

Cammisano was bent over the railing of a second-story garden deck violently throwing up.

‘I went up to him to ask if he was OK, and he started cursing at me, screaming, “Fuck off – do you know who I am?”‘ I told him I didn’t care who he was.’

They didn’t speak again for two years but were re-introduced by a mutual friend during Sam’s junior year.

By that time, Cammisano had come out as gay but Sam had not.

Recalls Sam: ‘I could see he was interested. I bought him a couple of drinks, got us tipsy. Toward the end of the night, I put my arm around him, and it was over.’

They began to date but the still-closeted Sam fretted, worried that his teammates would find out.

‘Everyone knew Vito was gay, so we couldn’t even be seen together. There was a lot of climbing out of windows,’ Sam says.

They broke up eventually but got back together as Sam became more comfortable with being gay and decided to come out to his teammates.

‘Vito was really the person who showed me I had to do it,’ Sam says. ‘I wanted us to be comfortable.’

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