Former professional bodybuilder Bob Paris says coming out in 1989 devastated his business.

Paris, a former Mr. Universe, announced he's gay in the July issue of Ironman, making him the world's first active male professional athlete to come out publicly.

Appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show with then-boyfriend Rod Jackson, Paris explained his reasons for coming out of the closet.

“You fall in love and when Rod and I met we found a spiritual bond between each other,” Paris told Winfrey at the time. “And you develop this relationship and this move toward marriage and you find that if you bastardize it and you stick it back in your back pocket where no one can see it, then pretty soon you chip away pieces of that bit by bit until you have absolutely nothing left.”

In a Where Are They Now? segment, cabler OWN caught up with Paris.

Today, Paris, 54, lives with his husband Brian LeFurgey on an island near Vancouver, British Columbia. Together since 1996, the pair married in Canada in 2003.

Paris said he became a recluse after his relationship with Jackson ended.

He also said he lost 80 percent of his business, doors were slammed in his face and his life was threatened.

Of his marriage, Paris said: “Being able to finally make our marriage legal in 2003 healed a spot in my soul that had been wounded from the time I had been 14 years old and first realized I was a gay man living in a culture that told me I was less than. And here I was suddenly being treated as a whole person.” (The video is embedded on this page. Visit our video library for more videos.)