T.J. Osborne Addresses “Hurdles” in Country Music After Coming Out as Gay
Country singer T.J. Osborne is feeling freer now than he ever expected to after publicly coming out as gay.
Following the 36-year-old Brothers Osborne frontman sharing his story in a TIME magazine interview on Wednesday, Feb. 3, he opened up during his Feb. 4 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show about the intense emotions associated with this journey.
“Just hearing you say that just honestly made me so emotional,” the performer said in a preview video from the episode after host Ellen DeGeneres mentioned in his introduction that he had just come out. “I’m trying not to cry on national television right now.”
T.J. explained that this has been a new experience for him, given that he is not typically one to share much about his personal life.
“I think it’s kind of the really beautiful thing in all of this for me is, I’ve really never come out to very many people,” he shared. “I’ve only done it to a few people, mainly because I find it just really awkward and uncomfortable. And so it has been a really wild experience to have come out to very few people, although a lot of my friends and family knew already, to then kind of come out publicly in one big fell swoop, which was in some ways nice, in other ways just made for a very emotional day.”