Harry Styles fan McKinley McConnell and her mother Lisa have opened up about their infamous coming out moment in a new interview.
Earlier this month, McKinley and her mother attended Styles’ Love On Tour show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
While at the concert, the 23-year old held up a sign that said: “ My mom is in Section 201. Help me come out.”
After seeing the sign, the One Direction star ran to the girl’s section and held up the microphone to her so she could make the announcement.
After expressing hesitancy, the pop star and McKinley agreed that he would do it for her.
He then ran across the stage singing, before declaring: “Lisa, she’s gay!”
Earlier this week, McKinely and her mother stopped by The Ellen DeGeneres Show to discuss the viral video.
When asked about her initial reaction to the heartwarming moment, the 23-year-old said she felt “very overwhelmed.”
However, after nearly a month since coming out to her mother, McKinley has described her life as “so relaxed” now that she can truly be herself.
“I feel authentically and true to myself. I probably feel the happiest I felt in a long time. So I’m so grateful for everything that has happened,” she gushed to Ellen.
She went on to give insight into why she used Styles’ concert as a means to come out and revealed that it was a last-minute decision.
“I had come out to my siblings a couple of months ago so I know I wanted to come out to her. It’s a very weird new tradition at his shows that he’s starting to help fans come out,” she explained.
“He says this speech, and it’s at every stop, he goes ‘My job for the next 90 minutes is to entertain you but your job is to have the time of your life, to be whoever you want to be in this room, to love whoever you want to love in this room and just have the best time of your life.’”
After hearing Styles’ speech numerous times, McKinley felt inspired to use his inclusive platform to finally open up to her mother – which resulted in her making the iconic sign.
Later in the interview, Ellen asked Lisa if she had any idea regarding her daughter’s plan to which she replied: “It was a complete surprise.”
‘When she was staying with me, she made the sign and she asked that I not be in the same room,” she explained.
“So I’m up in the rafters [at the concert] and he started reading the sign. I can see on the jumbotron the gold and then I heard him say ‘My mom’ and I knew then he was talking about my daughter.”
After the emotional moment, Lisa said that she felt “very proud” of her daughter for coming out.
“I knew how she felt about this artist, and to share such an intimate part of her life with an entire venue, I was very proud of her. I love her very much for doing that,” she exclaimed.
“At that moment I wanted to touch her, I wanted to touch her so much and just give her a really big hug and tell her that I supported her.”
We’re not crying… you are!
Check out the full Ellen interview here or below.
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