Getty/Facebook Dennis Sansoucie (r) and Aaron Hernandez (l)
Dennis SanSoucie was the alleged secret lover of former New England Patriots tight end and convicted murderer Aaron Hernandez.
Hernandez’s alleged hidden gay lifestyle – and his inability to come to terms with it – contributed to his almost Shakespearean downfall, or so the narrative goes in a new Netflix series on his life and death and in a lengthy Boston Globe profile that preceded it. The Netflix documentary series is called Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, and it streams on January 15, 2020.
Many people remember the tragic trajectory of Hernandez’s life: The once promising athlete and 4th round draft pick with a $40 million contract who was eventually convicted of murdering the boyfriend of his fiancee’s sister, a man named Odin Lloyd, and who also became embroiled in a series of other shooting and homicide accusations. Hernandez committed suicide, and analysis showed he’d suffered from severe chronic traumatic encephalopathy – the worst case researchers had ever seen in someone his age. The ending of Aaron Hernandez was bizarre. He’d sketched references to the Illuminati on his prison wall in blood. He scrawled a Bible verse on his forehead.
That’s all a familiar story, but, to many, the story of Dennis SanSoucie and Aaron Hernandez is less known. Hernandez, of course, is not around to give his version of it.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. SanSoucie Was a High School Quarterback Who Played Football With Hernandez
Dennis SanSoucie
SanSoucie’s ties to Aaron Hernandez go way back – to high school. According to Oxygen, he played high school football with Hernandez.
He told Netflix, “When I met Aaron, it was like meeting your twin brother. It was so funny; we were both the same. He has dimples, we’re both ‘cheesy smile,’ all happy. He used to be able to make everyone laugh.”
Hernandez was a star on the a Bristol Central High football field. The Boston Globe described how SanSoucie and Hernandez made a standout team, “one of the most prolific passing tandems in the state” with “nine touchdown completions in the first four games. In Hernandez’s junior year, he caught 67 passes for a total of 1,807 yards.”
2. SanSoucie Told Netflix & the Boston Globe That He Had a Sexual Relationship With Hernandez
Tightend Aaron Hernandez #81 of the New England Patriots warms up just prior to the start of the preseason game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium on August 18, 2011 in Tampa, Florida.
SanSoucie appears in the Netflix show. According to Oxygen, he says he and Hernandez had “an on-and-off relationship from the 7th grade to the junior year of high school.”
He said on Netflix, that few people in his high school were “out of the closet,” so they felt they had to “hide what we were.”
“I was in such denial … because I was an athlete,” he said. “‘You mean to tell me that the quarterback and the tight end was gay? He sleeps with other men?’ No, it doesn’t sit right with people. It doesn’t sit right within our own stomach at that time.”
SanSoucie first made the revelations to the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team. That article says that SanSoucie revealed a “now-and-then sexual relationship he had with Aaron,” starting in middle school and lasting through high school.
“Me and him were very much into trying to hide what we were doing. We didn’t want people to know,” he told Globe.
3. SanSoucie’s Dad Coached Hernandez & Was in a Physical Altercation With Hernandez’s Abusive Dad
Aaron Hernandez grew up to respect — and fear — his father. He also kept some painful secrets. Read part one of @GlobeSpotlight’s “Gladiator.” t.co/lfkkE6RJdW
The lengthy Boston Globe profile on Aaron Hernandez in 2018 by the paper’s Spotlight team described how SanSoucie’s dad, Tim SanSoucie, was Aaron’s youth tackle football coach. The future NFL star was 8 years old.
Aaron’s father once “got physical” with SanSoucie because he didn’t like his coaching calls, The Globe reported, describing Aaron’s father as abusive. SanSoucie’s dad is a frequent commentator on the Netflix series about Hernandez, and it’s clear that he fully accepts his son’s lifestyle.
“He promptly turned around and clocked me one across the face, broke my glasses off my face,” said SanSoucie to the Globe of the Hernandez patriarch, Dennis Hernandez, who died at age 49 after “routine hernia surgery.” The Globe added that the incident ended up in small claims court.
4. SanSoucie Became a Marine & Hernandez Also had a Girlfriend in High School
Aaron Hernandez had a complex sexuality. He also had a girlfriend in high school named Shayanna Jenkins, who would later become the mother of his child and his fiancee.
ABC 6 described Aaron’s suicide note to the woman he called “Shay.”
“You have been my soul-mate and I want you to live life and know I’m always with you,” he said. He called her a “true angel” and told her that he loved her.
According to Daily Mail, Jenkins wrote a forward in a book called “Unnecessary Roughness,” by Jose Baez. “There has been much speculation about Aaron’s sexuality since his death. I can say this: Aaron was very much a man to me,” Jenkins wrote in the forward.
“I saw no indication that he was gay or homosexual. I wish I had known how he felt, just so we could have talked about it. I wouldn’t have disowned him. I would have been supportive. I can’t fault him if he was feeling that way.”
According to Daily Mail, after high school, SanSoucie entered the U.S. Marine Corps.
5. Hernandez Allegedly Had a Relationship With a Man in Prison
Kyle Kennedy’s mugshot. (Uxbridge Police Department)
Hernandez’s alleged gay relationship with SanSoucie was not his last. According to RadarOnline, the football star, “confessed his true love for his prison lover, Kyle Kennedy.”
A letter Hernandez wrote Kennedy appeared in the book, In Aaron Hernandez’s Killing Fields.
“I just wanted to tell you this morning that I love you. You never have to question us. I will stop questioning you and us. I realized through our thing over the past few days how much I love you and how much I want you and us,” the book claimed Hernandez wrote, according to Radar Online.
According to his Write a Prisoner profile, Kennedy described himself as “straight.” He writes, “Hello, my name is Kyle. I signed up on this website so I can correspond and possibly build friendships with people from around the world.”
You can read more about Kyle Kennedy here. He is a convicted bank robber.
READ NEXT: The Brain of Aaron Hernandez.