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.