In a video posted on Instagram
Thursday, National Coming Out Day, Thomas Roberts said that his
mother was the first person he came out to.
Roberts, the evening anchor on WGCL-46,
the CBS affiliate in Atlanta, said that he came out to his mother at
27. He said that he was sobbing and that his mother offered to guess
and that she guessed right.
“I couldn't get through it,”
Roberts,
46, said. “I was crying. I was sobbing. It was really bad.
We were at the kitchen table and she said, honey, don't worry, I'll
guess. I'm like okay. She said, you're gay. I said, yes. She
said, oh, honey, that's okay. I'm sorry you had to carry this burden
alone for so long. It was the greatest reaction I could have ever
hoped for, because I was so afraid of having this conversation.”
Roberts advised anyone struggling with
coming out to take their time.
Roberts, who in 2015 became the first
openly gay anchor of a prime-time newscast when he anchored NBC's
Nightly News, married his husband Patrick Abner, a Merck
executive, in 2012.