Why MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts’ mom thought maybe her son had murdered someone

Thomas Roberts was ready to tell his mom that he was gay back in 1999.

Roberts was turning 27 when he returned home to Baltimore, Maryland, to share the news with his family once and for all.

But it didn’t go as smoothly as he had hoped – at least the part where he would actually utter the words, ‘I’m gay.’

‘I sat with my mom at the kitchen table and I said I had something to tell her, and I got very emotional,’ Roberts tells Galore Magazine. ‘I had a hard time being able to express the words. Even though I had gone over it in my head and I was gonna do this and I felt ready, I just started crying.

‘And my mom said, “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” and I’m like “I can’t say, I can’t say” and she’s like I’ll guess. And I said okay, and she goes “You’ve murdered someone.” I said No? She goes someone’s pregnant, and I said No? and then she goes “Okay, you’re gay.” And I said yes, and she said, “I’m so sorry you’ve had to carry this by yourself for so long, and this has been such a burden on you I’m so sorry.”

‘And then she hugged me, and I couldn’t believe it. But I was so upset and I was crying so hard, she thought I had murdered somebody! And my mother being my mother, obviously she’d help me bury the body, but she guessed it.

‘I was just so upset, she thought it was murder, that’s how upset I was, but I was so relieved once I told her and then it’s still complex from there but once I had her, the rest of it fell like dominoes in place for my life and the support system I needed, and that’s what I think is truly coming out, when you can do that to your family.’

Roberts was working at a television station in Florida then. He went on to become an anchor at CNN before being hired by his current employer MSNBC. He made history last year when he anchored a few nights of NBC Nightly News, the first openly gay person to do so.