The fiancee of ex-NFL player Aaron Hernandez publicly responded Tuesday to rumors about his sexuality.
The second part of a two-part interview with Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez aired Tuesday on the "Dr. Phil" show. Jenkins-Hernandez said she spoke with Hernandez before he killed himself about rumors that he was gay, and he told her those rumors were not true.
"I had no indication or any feeling that he was such. He was very much a man to me," Jenkins-Hernandez told host Dr. Phillip McGraw. "I don't know where this came from. It's embarrassing, it's hurtful. It's just not something that I saw. It's not something that I believe, and it's just not him."
She also addressed rumors that Hernandez wrote a suicide note to fellow prison inmate Kyle Kennedy. She said the letter to Kennedy doesn't exist.
"Never heard of him," Jenkins-Hernandez said. "If [Aaron] mentioned him, it was slightly or not at all."
She said Hernandez left three letters - one to her, one to their daughter and another to his lawyer.
Larry Army Jr., Kennedy's lawyer, held a press conference last month, calling on prison officials to release a letter he said Hernandez had addressed to his client. Kennedy also claimed that Hernandez had verbally promised to give him a $47,000 custom-made watch.
Kennedy issued a new statement Tuesday just minutes before the "Dr. Phil" show aired renewing his request to have the letter released.
"I want to be clear that at no time have I seen a note addressed to me from my close friend Aaron Hernandez but I have reason to believe it was in fact intended for me," Kennedy said. "The story about who this letter was sent to has changed several times but based upon the close relationship that I had with Aaron, it is highly likely that it was in fact intended for me. I again renew my request to have the letter released to my attorney so we can put this issue to rest."
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In part one of her interview on "Dr. Phil" - which aired Monday - Jenkins-Hernandez said she doesn't think the former New England Patriots tight end killed himself on April 19, as authorities have said. She says he was upbeat in their last telephone conversation before he was found hanged and there was no indication he was suicidal.
Hernandez's death came days after he was acquitted in a 2012 Boston double slaying. He was serving a life sentence in a 2013 killing.
