T.J. Osborne had a "very emotional day" after coming out as gay.
TJ and John Osborne
The Brothers Osborne singer admitted it has been a "wild experience" to publicly declare his sexuality in a TIME magazine interview published on Wednesday (03.02.21) because it wasn't a subject he'd previously discussed with many people.
After being introduced as "incredibly brave" by talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, T.J. replied in a virtual interview due to air on Thursday (04.02.21): "Just hearing you say that, honestly it made me so emotional. I’m trying not to cry on national television right now...
"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.
"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."
The 'All Night' singer - who is joined in the group by his brother John - admitted he wishes he'd come out publicly sooner because of the relief he felt.
He said: "I kinda got to this point to where I knew there was really never going to be the perfect time, and that honestly, now that I'm kinda behind it now with the coming out, it's wild to me that the perfect time is always now.
"I instantaneously felt that I wish I had done this a long time ago."
T.J. is the first openly gay artist to be signed to a major country record label and he admitted he is expecting to encounter some "hurdles" when he performs outside of major cities, though he also hopes he will be probed wrong.
He said: "I'm curious to see how it all plays out with us going to rural America.
"I think there are some people out there ... there's a lot of hurdles, clearly, with people that don't like gay people, and it's just a thing.
"But in some respects, I do feel like maybe through my insecurities, I've built it up to maybe be a bigger hurdle than it was the whole time."
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