Jordan Steffy, the gay teen who made national headlines earlier this month after standing up for himself against a homophobic bully, opened up about the incident on Tamron Hall's talk show.
Steffy walked Hall through the scene from the now-viral clip of him slapping a bully that can be heard calling him a "f*ggot."
The incident took place at LaPorte High School in La Porte, Indiana. It all started when the boy posted a photo of Steffy on Snapchat along with the caption, "I still hate gays."
A friend showed Steffy the post. "That hit me like, I don’t even know who this is," he said. "I just didn’t even know what to do." He decided to confront the boy who posted the photo the next day.
"I had walked into the class and I had the post right on my phone because I was going to ask him why he posted it. And I walked to his desk, I met him there, and I showed him, 'What is this?'"
The boy then began to call him a "f*ggot," taunting "What are you gonna do about it?" The situation quickly escalated into the fight we see in the video that now has millions of views and was shared around the country.
Steffy says him fighting back wasn't just about this one instance from this one person, but bullying over the course of years. "It was years and years, over and built up."
His mother Angie has now pulled him out of LaPorte High, opting for homeschool.
"I’m tired of it," said Angie. "I’m tired of him going through that. I’m happy he stood up for himself. I’m not happy he was cussing like that. I don’t like him hitting."
Steffy now just wants the negativity to end. Apparently, the kid who called him a "f*ggot" has been receiving abuse from thousands. "People out there that are bullying the kid who call me the slur," he tweeted. "It needs to stop, all bullying needs to stop regardless. People calling him things is no better than what he said to me. I want all the hatred and negative comments to stop."
Watch the two clips below.
