Credit: Gus Kenworthy
Gus Kenworthy paid tribute to his rescue pup Beemo one year after her tragic passing on Sunday, May 26.
The decorated Olympian shared a photo of the two of them together on his Instagram with a heart wrenching caption. “I can’t believe it’s been a year,” he wrote. “Love you forever Beemo.”
“She was perfect and she took a little piece of my heart with her,” Gus’ longtime boyfriend Matt Wilkas wrote in the comments section.
Several others, including RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon, left supportive words for Gus, 27, and Matt, 41.
“Everything stays,” the season 5 winner wrote alongside several heart emojis. “All my best spells and magic, my darling.”
Gus and Matt adopted Beemo from South Korea in March of last year. They did this shortly after he competed in the 2018 Winter Olympic Games that took place in the country’s city of Pyeongchang.
The Bronze medal winner spoke harshly against the thousands of dog farms located in South Korea and the unimaginable treatment the animals receive while there.
Tragedy struck Gus and Matt only two months after they adopted Beemo when she suddenly passed. “For a week or so we’d been worrying because she was showing less and less interest in her food,” Gus wrote on Instagram. “There were several trips to the vet and on our final visit this past Thursday I asked them do a full body scan in case there was an underlying issue they had missed.”
“Beemo went into a panic attack during the x-rays and her breathing became rapid and shallow. The scan revealed that her lungs were deteriorated and that her heart was too big for her body – a birth defect we had no way of knowing about,” he continued. “Unable to treat her there, I rushed her to the emergency vet where a breathing tube was put down her throat. They hoped that with a respirator breathing for her they could get her vitals back to a normal level so she could be treated but they were never able to do so.”
“Beemo was truly the best thing that ever happened to me and I feel so fortunate for our borrowed time together. I’ve never loved anything or anyone in the way that I loved that dog and she is and will always be deeply missed.”
Gus and Matt later adopted another rescue pup in August and named her Birdie. He did this in honor of Beemo as birds were one of her favorite things in the world.
He has since posted several adorable photos with Birdie since adopting her.
