The Olympic champion, 52, first realised she was gay at the age of 17 but only publicly came out this year.
Dame Kelly shared the news in June via a moving interview with the Sunday Mirror, saying she could ‘cry with relief’ when her sexuality was public knowledge.
And it wasn’t just the general public – the athlete revealed recently she only came out to her friend of 30 years while they were watching the Queen’s Jubilee.
Now Dame Kelly is continuing to speak proudly about who she is, and on Friday gave a moving speech at the annual LGBT Awards where she celebrated finding her ‘voice’ after years in the spotlight.
She revealed she decided things ‘had to change’ after her mother died four years ago, but she still struggled to with the idea of coming out publicly.
‘It’s taken me four years of soul searching, breakdowns, self-harming, depression, to find my voice,’ she said.
‘And finally, finally, I found my voice.’
Speaking on why she never came out, she explained: ‘It’s not because I didn’t want to, it’s not because I’m ashamed, it’s not because I didn’t want to be accepted.
‘I’ve just had a lot of barriers that have been put in my life.’
Dame Kelly served in the British army between 1988 and 1997, when, she recalls, ‘it was illegal to be gay’; openly LGBTQ+ people were allowed to join only beginning in 2000.
Despite this, Dame Kelly insisted she ‘loved serving’ and wouldn’t say ‘anything bad’ about her time in the armed forces.
‘I then became an international world-class athlete, where in my era no one spoke about being gay,’ she went on.
‘And as I went through my career it became harder and harder and harder to be me.’
The star also addressed the fact that some people had ‘assumed’ her sexuality for many years, saying this was not the same as using her power to come out on her own terms, or in her words, ‘assumption is not freedom.’
In her incredible interview where she came out to the world, she admitted she was ‘nervous’ but at the same time felt like she would ‘explode with excitement.’
‘Sometimes I cry with relief. The moment this comes out, I’m essentially getting rid of that fear.’
A documentary on Dame Kelly’s life, Kelly Holmes: Being Me, will air on Sunday at 10.20pm on ITV.
MORE : Dame Kelly Holmes reveals she only came out to friend of 3 decades Sally Gunnell at Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
MORE : Dame Kelly Holmes and Phillip Schofield burst into tears over coming out experiences: ‘One day, we won’t have to do these interviews’
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