Ellen DeGeneres welcomed gay student
Jordan Addison on the season 10 premier of The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Addison, a sophomore student at Radford
University in Virginia, had his car vandalized four times between
March and May. Vandals keyed homophobic slurs into the side of the
car, including the word “die.”
The Quality Auto Paint and Body shop
organized a drive to repair Addison's car for free. The shop gave
the car new tires, a new paint job, tinted windows, a security system
and a new stereo, an estimated $10,000 worth of upgrades and repairs.
DeGeneres invited both Addison and
Richard Henegar Jr. the manager at Quality Auto Paint and Body, to
her show.
“Knowing that it's not safe for me to
park my car because of my sexual orientation – it's awful,”
Addison said. “It makes me not even want to leave the house.”
On the repairs to his car, Addison
said: “It blew my mind. It's above and beyond everything I could
have imagined, and for somebody to do something this great for
someone they've never even met before – it's phenomenal.”
“It felt great to give him his car,”
Henegar said. “I just wanted to help him out.” (The video is
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