Gay couple from CNN New Year’s Eve kiss react to backlash
08.01.2024 - 01:53
/ qvoicenews.com
2024 started with a bang.
CNN’s New Year’s Eve telecast featured a gay, interracial couple kissing during the official countdown to 2024. While many viewers were thrilled to see an LGBTQ+ couple getting highlighted on this NYE special, there was also some backlash to featuring this moment of queer love as people from all over the world were watching the telecast.
The gay couple seen on TV, Jake Eriksson and Corin Christian, filmed their first-ever on-screen interview exclusively with Out. During our conversation, Eriksson and Christian share more personal details about themselves, reveal how they met, and reflect on the response they’ve gotten to their now-iconic New Year’s Eve kiss on CNN.
“I have a TikTok presence, so I woke up the next day and I’m like, ‘Jake, my phone is blowing up.’ I was so confused as to what was going on,” Christian says. “I’m going through (my phone), scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. I see the things on CNN. And I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is crazy.’ We were literally the first thing that people saw in 2024.”
Eriksson chimes in, “It was a little sad to see some of the negative comments and how negatively (people) were affected by that, being forced to see two men kissing on live TV. It was a little sad to see that.” Overall, though, Eriksson believes that people are just scared of things they don’t know, can’t understand, or feel insecure about. “I lived in fear for so long,” he adds. “I lived in shame, and I thought something was wrong with me. I thought I was going to hell, and I’m just not willing to live like that anymore. I’m happier when I treat people with love and kindness, regardless of how they identify and who they love.”
Christian adds, “For me, it’s sad seeing the comments that I was