News3 Questions

Actions

3 Questions with Bob Evans: Charlie Bird, former BYU mascot ‘Cosmo the Cougar’ talks about coming out as gay

Posted at 10:13 PM, Mar 10, 2019
and last updated 2019-03-11 09:36:26-04

SALT LAKE CITY -- He is the embodiment of school spirit at BYU.

Cosmo the Cougar is at all major sporting events and often wows the crowd with his antics.

Recently, Charlie Bird took the rare and courageous step of revealing that not only was he Cosmo the Cougar from 2015 to 2018, but that he is also gay.

At a school listed by the Princeton Review as the second most unfriendly to the LGBTQ community, that is a dichotomy.

Bird recently sat down with Bob Evans for 3 Questions.

1- How do you get to be Cosmo, and who on campus knows who you really are?

2- Is it possible to be an active Latter-day Saint, and keep your integrity as a gay man?

3- Going forward, though, you're going to grow and develop, and you have relationships and all of those things. The Church is very staunch in its position as to LGBTQ behaviors, and the LGBTQ community is very staunch and determined in its position in relationship issues. How do you see yourself going forward in that environment?

See the video below for the extended interview: