What's Your Best and Worst New Year's Eve Kiss?
If you want to start 2021 off right, it's all about landing a perfect New Year's Eve kiss. But sometimes... it's not always cute.
We asked a few LGBTQ+ celebs and influencers to share their best and worst New Year's Eve kiss, and trust us when we say WE CAN RELATE. Stay safe out there -- and remember to pack your mints! Read their stories below.
Jake DuPree, Boylesque Star
THE BEST: My best New Year's Eve kiss happened right before I moved to Los Angeles. I was dating someone that lived in L.A. and I lived in NYC. I came to visit him for NYE and he had this entire special night planned. It ended with us in this roped off section of The Abbey dancing in our suits. When the clock struck midnight, we were both very tipsy from too much champagne and making out and getting handsy on the dance floor! It was just very symbolic of being young and in love!
THE WORST: My worst New Year's Eve kiss happened with a guy I was dating for a while. We went to be with his sister and her kids for NYE. We all went to bed before midnight, and at midnight he rolled over and gave me a peck and then went back to sleep. SO UNROMANTIC!!! We broke up six months later! I should have known from that moment alone that he was definitely not the one!
Kevin Carnell, Influencer and Fitness Model
THE BEST: My best New Year's Eve kiss was so long ago! I was newly out and a good friend of mine happened to be at the same party. He was so instrumental to my personal development that year and really helped me come into my own, so the sense of comfort and familiarity made it seem like a good idea to bring in a new year with his lips on mine.
THE WORST: My worst would have to be the year that I went to a party full of strangers and didn't have a date, so I ended up kissing my champagne flute. I feel like this experience will be all of us in 2020!
Ryan Jamaal Swain, Actor and Activist
THE BEST: My best New Year's kiss hasn't happened yet, but will update you on the new year vibe!
THE WORST: My worst kiss wasn't really the worst, just a huge inconvenience as I didn't know anyone there. And yet here we are looking at one another as the clock strikes waiting for permission. I finally get permission, then he has a huge cold sore on his lip, the young man standing next to me. I am super superstitious so I had to close the moment with a kiss for prosperity and love, so I took one for the team. And turns out the lips were dry too. Not horrid. Just not it!
Noelle Stevenson, Creator and Showrunner of Netflix's 'She-Ra and the Princesses of Power'
THE BEST: My best New Year's kiss was at the start of 2020. Having my birthday on New Year's Eve (which tends to be a kind of disappointing holiday overall), I have always been looking for the perfect NYE experience that you only see on TV, and that means I kind of fixated on wanting to experience a balloon drop. They're oddly hard to find! But on this particular New Year's Eve we went to a gay dance party with our friends, and it was the most lovely, gay-ass dance floor, and Molly (pictured left) was my wife and there was a fucking balloon drop at midnight! Everyone was kissing and it was perfect in every way.
THE WORST: My worst New Year's kiss was also, I'm pretty sure, the first one I ever had. I had just started seeing my now-wife Molly but she had a long-term boyfriend and we were doing a poly thing that I was secretly really struggling with. I stressed out SO HARD that whole night (and New Year's Eve is my birthday on top of that) about who she was going to kiss first at midnight. I couldn't focus on anything else that whole night. She did actually end up kissing me first and that's when I realized, fuuuuck, I'm in too deep!
Ryan Russell, Writer and Football Player
THE BEST: We can not judge a NYE Kiss by the year that precedes it, so I ask that you hear me out when I say my NYE kiss was this past year. Before COVID-19, my boyfriend, Corey O'Brien, and I were in a small gay bar in Manchester, New Hampshire. We were in N.H. because Corey was a part of a theatre show, and nothing says Happy New Year like drag. Surrounded by theatergoers, drag queens, and queer folk of all kinds, I shared my first out NYE kiss with the love of my life. No matter how the rest of the year went, it started magically.
THE WORST: It feels dramatic for me to say that this story is about my worst NYE kiss but more so the most unforgettable. It was 2017, and I drank too much. I was coping with my sexuality and losing my best friend. I didn't care about much, and the more tequila I drank, the easier it was to not care about myself. I was in a bar in Phoenix, AZ, with someone I would consider a frienemy, and as the countdown to the New Year ticked, I ran to the bathroom to throw up. When the clock hit zero, I wiped vomit from my lips, went to my reflection in the mirror, and kissed myself through the glass.
