Bobby Riggs was nothing if not boastful about his talents and claimed he could beat any man, or woman, on the tennis court. Billie Jean King accepted his challenge, and in 1973, the two met in the “Battle of the Sexes,” which King won.
In 1981, a news report outed her as a lesbian, and rather than issue denials, King publicly admitted to being gay. Although acceptance of homosexuality in the early-’80s wasn’t nearly as mainstream as today, King nonetheless pressed on, saying in 2017 that, in retrospect, she would have come out sooner.
