The sporting superstar turned to the Sunday Mirror to come out at the age of 52 – in Pride month.
Behind her beaming smile, Kelly has lived a “secret life” for decades.
And she admits: “There have been lots of dark times where I wished I could scream that I am gay – but I couldn’t.”
After years of pain, and fully aware of rumours about her sexuality, she is grateful to be breaking the news on her own terms.
"Everyone knew who was gay, but you’d never talk about it," she said. "There was this pub that had a back dance floor and a pool table and everyone we knew was gay used to go to this place. You could be yourself, then come back to your barracks."
One problem for Kelly was that the more famous she became, the harder it was to reveal the truth. Yet, says Kelly, sexuality was not even on her radar when she dated boys as a teenager in Hildenborough, Kent.
She says: “It was an era where the stigma of homosexuality was really bad because of the AIDS epidemic. I didn’t have any role models in anything like that.
When she was 23, Kelly’s quarters were searched by Royal Military Police in a check which she believed was to root out secret lesbians. She was left terrified, recalling: "They pulled everything out of your cupboard, turned out the beds and drawers, read letters – everything – trying to catch us out, so we could be arrested, court martialled and potentially go to jail.
"It’s humiliating, it’s degrading – it feels disrespectful when you’re serving your country and you’re doing a good job. You feel violated, treated like you’re some massive villain.
"Those moments stuck with me because I didn’t want to lose my job, I loved it. But I felt the law was wrong.
"How can who you feel connected with affect whether you can fire a weapon, be on the front line, take a physical training instructor class?" The rest of her family were supportive when she came out to them in person in 1997.
It coincided with her leaving the Army to pursue international athletics full-time. Kelly said: "I was thinking ‘oh s***’, I was in bits about telling them.
"But they said they knew anyway. No one’s ever had a problem. They don’t know me any different."
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