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22 March 2018

Mum shares emotional moment with her newly-out 14-year-old son after seeing ‘Love, Simon’

We're not crying, you're crying.

By Will Stroude

Greg Berlanti’s gay teen drama Love, Simon has rightly been praised for finally bringing young LGBT love stories into the movie mainstream – and if you were in a doubt about the film’s importance to families across the country, a video of one mother and her teenage son taken at a preview screening in Birmingham this week should be enough to persuade you. 

14-year-old Cameron came out to his mum Suki in January after struggling with his sexuality for some time. Cut to two months later, and the mother-of one took her son to see a screening of Love, Simon, where the pair spoke TV presenter Riyadh Khalaf about the “amazing” film and – in a scene that could be straight out of the movie – shared an incredibly touching moment together.

Teenager Cameron, who according to Riyadh wants “to be an aothur or scientist” when he’s older but “isn’t quite sure yet”, revealed that his mum took the news that he was gay “quite well”.

Suki then recalled her own reaction to the news, saying: “I did cry! He’s my only child.”

Asked by why she’d cried, the supportive mum replied: “I don’t know, it’s just a mum’s reaction. It’s big.”

After pausing for thought, Suki went on: “I cried I think because Cameron had known a while and had just gone through it all by himself.”

Embracing her son, her emotion was clear to see as she continued: “I just felt awful because I thought ‘I should have been there’. And he should have told me. And we should have done it together.

“He had to battle it all by himself.”

According to Riyadh, the adorable mother and son approached him at the screening after watching some his videos on YouTube.

 

“[Suki] came up and said they’ve helped them since Cameron came out”, he tells Attitude.

“As you can imagine this destroyed me as I stood in the middle of the cinema lobby.”

The Queer Britain presenter went on: “Cameron is a book worm and read the original book of the film in just a couple of days and said he’s never related to a story more in his life.

“He said he had to bring his mom to see it and is already planning to bring his friends along too once it’s released.”

Based on the best-selling book Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, Love, Simon tells the story of a closeted high school senior Simon (Jurassic World’s Nick Robinson), whose life is turned upside down after a classmate threatens to out him.

With supporting turns from Jennifer Garner (Dallas Buyer’s Club) and Josh Duhamel (Transformers), Love, Simon, marks one of the first major studio coming out stories to be aimed specifically at a teen audience – but it’s not juse those watching the film whose lives are being changed.

One of the film’s stars, Keiynan Lonsdale, revealed last week that appearing in the movie played a big part in his decision to come out publicly last summer.

The 26-year-old actor, who stars in US superhero drama The Flash, told OUT: “I thought, ‘Wow, I’m doing a film about equality and coming out, and the director has his partner and their child on set, and everyone’s so supportive and loving, and yet here I am still hiding. At what point am I going to be able to be myself?’

“I realised it had nothing to do with anyone else. It was just me holding myself back.”

Love, Simon hits UK cinemas on April 6. Check out the trailer below:

Words: Will Stroude

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