T.J. Osborne is feeling the love after coming out as gay earlier this month.
The country music artist, one half of the duo Brothers Osborne, opened up about recently coming out in a segment on CBS This Morning on Friday (Feb. 26).
“I would say just to encourage anyone else out there who’s dealing with the same thing … it’s a hard thing to describe, it’s a very difficult thing to go through. And I even had a lot of support around me. But once I finally came out … I didn’t really understand the magnitude of how much people cared about me, loved me and supported me,” he said.
Dozens of country peers took to social media to celebrate Osborne in early February, after he came out in an interview with Time.
“Honestly,” Osborne added on CBS This Morning, “Had I known that the whole time, I would have done it probably a long time ago and saved myself a lot of strife. Anyone out there, if you’re dealing with that, there’s people that love you and people that support you. Lots of them.”
“It has been a tsunami of love, almost to the point it was hard for me to even comprehend it for several days,” he said.
Despite the outpouring of support, Osborne — who’s part of a growing roster of queer artists in the country music industry — admitted that talking about coming out feels a bit strange.
“My close family and friends have known for a while. I really, at the same time, felt publicly I was always kind of in this stuck in second gear kind of phase. Honestly, for straight people out there, coming out is really awkward. It’s an awkward thing to talk about. It’s a really odd thing to bring up,” he explained, then joked, “Obviously, I work in the entertainment business, so I like lots of attention,” he joked.
