Related: WWE Superstar Darren Young comes out as gay — and happy!Patterson came out publicly as gay in 2014, and is now celebrated as the first gay star of the WWE.
He died in 2020 after a battle with cancer; he was 78.Newly resurfaced documents in a report by David Bixenspan for Mel Magazine outline the now-shuttered US Immigration and Naturalisation Service’s (INS) repeated efforts to deport Patterson for being gay.Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the documents reveal the INS started a years-long investigation of Patterson in 1964.