First Openly Gay NBA Player Jason Collins, 47, Dies Year After Wedding to Husband

Jason Collins, the first openly gay player in NBA history, has died. A quiet moment before a missed flight later became a key detail in the final chapter of his life.

Former NBA player Jason Collins has died at 47, the NBA and his family announced on Wednesday, May 13, 2026. His death came less than a year after he married his husband, film producer Brunson Green, in Austin, Texas.

Collins made history in 2013 as the NBA's first openly gay active player and later became a leading advocate for LGBTQ inclusion in professional sports.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Collins' influence extended beyond basketball. In a statement published by the NBA, Silver said Collins helped make sports "more inclusive and welcoming for future generations."

"Jason will be remembered not only for breaking barriers, but also for the kindness and humanity that defined his life and touched so many others," Silver said.

Collins played 13 seasons in the NBA and later served as an NBA Cares ambassador. His decision to come out publicly while still active in the league marked a major moment in professional sports.

Collins' family confirmed his cause of death in a statement released through the NBA.

"We are heartbroken to share that Jason Collins, our beloved husband, son, brother and uncle, has died after a valiant fight with glioblastoma," the statement said.

The family added that Collins "changed lives in unexpected ways" and thanked supporters for their prayers during the past eight months.

Months before his death, Collins publicly described the subtle symptoms that first signaled something was wrong. In an essay published by ESPN in December 2025, Collins recalled how the symptoms disrupted a tradition he and Green shared shortly after their wedding.

"In May I married the love of my life, Brunson Green, at a ceremony in Austin, Texas, that couldn't have been more perfect," Collins wrote.

The couple planned to attend the US Open in August, continuing an annual tradition. But Collins said something unusual happened before their flight.

"When the car came to take us to the airport, I was nowhere near ready," he wrote. "And for the first time in decades, we missed the flight because I couldn't stay focused to pack."

Doctors later diagnosed Collins with stage 4 glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Collins said he initially ignored the symptoms because of his athlete mentality. "I had been having weird symptoms like this for a week or two, but unless something is really wrong, I'm going to push through," he wrote. "I'm an athlete."

In the months that followed, Collins shared more details about the aggressive brain tumor that doctors later discovered and the difficult treatment journey that followed.

Behind the Diagnosis

As previously reported, Jason disclosed that he had "one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer."

According to Jason, further tests confirmed a glioblastoma "multiforme," which he described as "a monster with tentacles spreading across the underside of my brain the width of a baseball."

A Dangerous, Aggressive Tumor

The biopsy revealed the tumor had a 30% growth factor, meaning it could have become fatal in "six weeks to three months" without urgent intervention.

Jason said doctors later told him that due to the tumor's placement — already in both hemispheres of his brain — it was considered a butterfly glioblastoma, making it impossible to resect fully.

He also said his cancer is a "wild type," comparing it to "the Hydra," adding, "That's the kind of glio I have." In an interview with Ramona Shelburne, Jason said he experienced profound physical changes before and after the diagnosis.

"I'm now down to 240 lb, and before this, I was like 260. That was really crazy to lose that amount of weight," he said, adding that he also began experiencing memory lapses and episodes of sitting in a room and not realizing how long he had been sitting there.

Green, his husband, a film producer known for "The Help" and "A United Kingdom," said Jason began behaving uncharacteristically:

"He seemed to always want to liberate himself from his clothes… 'Well, I feel like my shirt's uncomfortable, but I don't know why it's uncomfortable, so if I take it off, I don't have to think about it anymore.'"

When Brunson rushed him to the ER, doctors quickly identified "a baseball-sized mass in the middle of his skull." Faced with a cancer moving faster than his own body could keep up, Jason and his family turned their focus to the one thing they could control: how to fight it.

The Treatment Plan

Jason said his family urgently worked to get him discharged so he could begin Avastin, which he was told was his best chance to regain clarity. He began radiation shortly afterward. Within days, he started improving, from being wheeled into treatment to walking by the third session.

He now receives care at a clinic in Singapore offering targeted chemotherapy using EDVs, which he described as a Trojan horse delivering medication through the blood-brain barrier straight into his tumors. The long-term goal is to keep the cancer stable long enough to create a custom immunotherapy.

Because his tumor is unresectable, Jason said the standard treatment, temozolomide (TMZ) chemotherapy, for his type of cancer offers an average prognosis of only 11 to 14 months, writing, "Because my tumor is unresectable, going solely with the 'standard of care' -- radiation and TMZ -- the average prognosis is only 11 to 14 months."

He added that if this path doesn't save him, he hopes it will help someone else. Even as doctors worked to slow the cancer's advance, the support surrounding Jason proved just as defining in how he moved forward.

Even as his health declined, Collins continued speaking openly about his diagnosis and treatment. Following his death, many fans and fellow athletes remembered him not only for making NBA history, but also for the openness he showed during the final months of his life.