'A League of Their Own' Inspiration Maybelle Blair on Coming Out at 95 & New Amazon Series (Exclusive)

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as well as Prime Video’s upcoming TV adaptation of the 1992 classic. The former athlete also recently made headlines by coming out as a lesbian at 95 years old, after nearly eight decades of hiding. “I felt this relief come over me,” Blair tells ET’s Kevin Frazier about the moment she revealed her truth during a live Q&A for the Prime Video series at the Tribeca Festival, which just happened to coincide with Pride Month. “I thought, ‘Well, Maybelle, you did it.’ And then afterwards, I got shaky because I forgot about my nephews [in the audience] for the moment.

I went home and I could hardly sleep because I was so scared. But anyway, the phone started ringing and it was my nephews and they said, ‘Maybelle, we’re so proud of you for coming out.’” For Blair, this moment came after spending most of her life in the closet over fear that her sexual identity would not only hurt her family, but hold her back in life. “Oh, it was very hard,” she says, explaining that early in her life she had top secret clearance for a job at Northrop. “And I was always afraid that somebody would call me into their office and say, ‘Maybelle, you’re dismissed because we found out that you’re a queer.’ And, oh my god, I would’ve died on the spot.”She adds, “And now, all these people can feel free to [live] their life the way they would like to live.”While she came out in the moment, Blair credits the Prime Video series created by Will Graham and Abbi Jacobson, who also stars as Rockford Peaches catcher Carson Shaw, for helping her come out. “If it hadn’t been for Will and Abbi and all of them making the new series of, I would have never come out in my life,” she says.The series promises to present a more authentic version of real-life events as it.