Robin Roberts became emotional during a Good Morning America segment about underground gay conversion camps on Friday, March 10. The gay news anchor, 56, thanked her late parents, who were deeply religious, for being supportive when she first came out. Watch the video above.
In the short segment, GMA went undercover to expose the conversion camps, which are outlawed in most states.
“No one was more religious than my parents,” Roberts shared during the live telecast. “I’m so grateful, especially after seeing this, how supportive they were of me as a gay woman, and my family and friends, and I’ll never forget my mother saying, ‘God loves you because of who He is, not because of anything you do or don’t do.’”
![Robin Roberts](/wp-content/uploads/robin-roberts-zoom-b76fbbdb-7347-4527-9d7c-a2d1814e1dbe.jpg?w=1000&quality=86&strip=all)
“Essence of Christianity right there,” her colleague George Stephanopoulos responded, to which she added, “Love is love.”
As previously reported, Roberts came out to the public in December 2013. She disclosed her relationship with longtime girlfriend Amber Laign in a Facebook post in which she reflected on battling myelodysplastic syndrome and a successful bone marrow transplant.
“At this moment I am at peace and filled with joy and gratitude,” she wrote at the time. “I am grateful to God, my doctors and nurses for my restored good health. I am grateful for my sister, Sally-Ann, for being my donor and giving me the gift of life. I am grateful for my entire family, my long time girlfriend, Amber, and friends as we prepare to celebrate a glorious new year together.”
Laign and Roberts have been together for more than a decade.
“There is no fuss with us,” she told AARP magazine in 2015. “We’re so happy. We’ve been happily in a relationship for 10 years and are looking forward to the next 10 after that.”