10/17/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/1DqfFJ8xbB/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Marie Osmond was raised as the Mormon sweetheart of American television.
Then her daughter came out as a le***an, and Marie had to decide what mattered more, other people's judgment or her child.
Jessica was 17 when she told her mother she was gay.
Marie cried.
But years later, she explained that she was not crying because of who Jessica was.
She was crying because she knew how cruel people could be.
“I cried because of the judgment.”
Marie had already known and loved many gay people.
What frightened her was imagining her daughter having to face the same judgment.
Then, in 2013, Marie went on national television and made her position clear.
Her brother Alan had recently participated in a Utah rally supporting traditional marriage.
Marie took a very different public position.
When Diane Sawyer named her ABC's Person of the Week, Marie spoke openly about her faith and her daughter.
“The God that I believe in is a god of love, not fear.”
Then she offered another image:
“I don't think God made one color flower. I think he made many.”
For Marie, accepting Jessica did not mean abandoning her faith.
It meant understanding that love was at the center of it.
Six years later, Jessica married her wife, Sara.
Marie was there.
And people criticized her for attending her own daughter's wedding.
Her response was simple:
Never shame anyone, “especially for loving your child.”
That sentence says everything about how far Marie had traveled.
The woman who had once cried because she feared the judgment surrounding her daughter eventually stood beside her at her wedding.
She did not choose secrecy.
She did not choose shame.
She chose Jessica.
And she made it clear that whatever someone believed about marriage, faith, or sexuality, there was one line she would not cross.
She would never stop loving her child.
Marie Osmond spent much of her life being told what a good Mormon woman, mother, and public figure was supposed to look like.
When her daughter came out, she decided that being a good mother meant something much simpler.
Love your child.
Stand beside them.
And never let other people's judgment become more important than your own family.
