Watch: Attorney Says Aaron Hernandez Struggled with Being Gay

In a new documentary called "Aaron Hernandez Uncovered," which aired on Oxygen Saturday night, the attorney for the former NFL star Aaron Hernandez, who was convicted of murdering Odin Lloyd in 2013 and took his own life in a prison cell in 2017, opened up about the athlete's sexuality.

Attorney George Leontire, a member of Hernandez's defense team who is gay himself, said he spoke with the former Patriots tight end about his sexuality at length, TMZ Sports reports.

"Aaron and I talked about his sexuality. This man clearly was gay," Leontire said. "[He] acknowledged it. Acknowledged the immense pain that it caused him.

"I think that he also came out of a culture that was so negative about gay people that he exhibited some self-hatred," he added.

Hernandez, 27, never publicly acknowledge that he was gay and was engaged to his college girlfriend Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez, with whom he had a daughter.

TMZ reports Alyssa Anderson, Hernandez's college girlfriend, said she learned Hernandez had a relationship with a man while they were attending the University of Florida, but that he denied the claims at the time.

"Back in college, there were text messages I saw on his phone when he came back from a trip [that were] from a male," she said. "[They] didn't have a name, didn't really say too much, but it was a relationship with somebody and I questioned it."

Hernandez was convicted of murdering semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd in 2013. While in prison, he was charged with the murders of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado. Leontire claimed prosecutors had little evidence and tried to use Hernandez's sexuality for their case.

"As a gay lawyer for 37 years, as a gay man who has been married to another man for over 36 years, I found it outrageous that the government would be trying to use someone's sexuality to prop up a case that they had no business bringing in the first place," he said.

In the new doc, Jenkins-Hernandez also talks about reacting to learning of Hernandez's sexuality.

Watch clips of the interview below.