Competitive swimmer Már Gunnarsson appeared as a guest of Svava Kristín Grétarsdóttir on the Stöð 2 programme Lífið utan leiksins. Már is blind and competes on behalf of the Icelandic Sports Association for the Disabled, achieving outstanding results in his field. He is also a musician and has enjoyed considerable success with his music.
During the programme, Már opened up about being gay.
“I released a song this summer with my friend Íva [Marín Adrichem], who is one of my best friends. We recorded a new version of a song by Ragnar Bjarnason—God bless his memory, although I am not religious,” Már said with a laugh. The song they recorded was Barn.
“I watched a memorial programme about Ragnar Bjarnason made by RÚV, which was exceptionally well produced. I heard this song and thought it was wonderful. I had heard it before, but I wanted to do something with it. We recorded and released it, and it became one of the most-played songs on Icelandic radio that summer,” Már said. The two also released a romantic music video for the song.
“In the video, we were holding hands and hugging and things like that. When the song came out, I received lots of messages asking whether I had a new girlfriend because of the video. Everyone seemed to assume that Íva and I were together, and I am sure many people still believe that today. The problem with that assumption is that we are both gay, so it does not work particularly well. Had we not both been blind, I do not think people would have made that assumption. They probably thought, ‘Aw, they found each other—how sweet.’”
Read more on Vísir.is.
The song and music video can be seen here:
More music by Már can be found on his YouTube channel: Már Gunnarsson on YouTube.
