In April, Las Vegas teen Anthony Martinez became an Internet sensation when his straight best friend Jacob Lescenski asked him to prom. The amazing show of friendship even earned the two an appearance on The Ellen Show. Gay Vegas recently caught up with Anthony, who filled us in on his journey.

Anthony, you had a very exciting month. You’re a junior becoming a senior and you had quite the surprise because one of your best friends, who is straight, asked you to prom. Tell us a little bit about that experience.

Overall the experience has been amazing. I mean even if there weren’t any cameras or any other recognition, just being able to go to prom with Jacob in the first place like how we originally intended, it was just fun and I wouldn’t have changed it otherwise. 

I’m sure experiences between different generations vary. I myself graduated from Green Valley High School in 2001 and we had a Gay Straight Alliance back then. Does resistance towards tolerance still exist in high schools today?

It does still exist today, but not in our high school essentially. I know when me and Jacob did our whole prom-posal thing, –I’m the student body president for our school next year and I would go to presidents’ meetings – and some of those schools were telling me, “I wish our school was like that. There are still kids in our school who get bullied for their sexuality.” It’s just crazy because going to Desert Oasis High School we have never had that problem. In our school, we do have a GSA [Gay-Straight Alliance]. It’s not as big as I’d have hoped and probably as most people would have hoped, but people know about it. 

So when and how did you and Jacob first meet?

We met our sophomore year through student council. Basically, I had a huge crush on him – I thought he was super adorable. And I’m really glad he didn’t let that get in the way of us being friends. At first he did seem uneasy around me, but then we kind of got to know each other. He makes me feel comfortable enough to where I want to be daring and do stuff and go hang out and stay out ‘til midnight, and we can just do whatever we want. And then I’m the one who keeps him grounded and I help him with homework. He’s just really fun and I guess he finds me really fun, so we like to hang out. We just get along. You would have never thought, but we just do.

Were you openly gay before all this happened?

Oh yeah, I was definitely openly gay.

When did you first come out to your parents?

I came out when I was 11-years-old, in about seventh grade. It was kind of tough at first. My mom understood, but my dad was indifferent and we didn’t talk for a while. My parents are divorced so I just didn’t see him as often. And then lately it’s just something that we don’t talk about. It’s just something I don’t bring up to him and I don’t see him often anyway. But I know my mom’s family are huge supporters and they’ve always been supportive.

So how did that whole Ellen thing happen?

It was just a really fast process overall. Me and Jacob were at a state conference so we had no idea what was going on. People were messaging us back and forth. They’re like, “We want you here. We want to do an interview there.” And then all of a sudden Ellen, one of the people just reached out and said, “Hey! We want you on The Ellen Show.” Then they booked our flights and next thing you know we were on The Ellen Show. We couldn’t believe it. We met Ellen, who was really amazing! All the people there are amazing. Overall it was just a great experience.

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You had a pretty big group of students that went down there. Was that planned?

They were planning it, but me and Jacob told them, “Look you guys, we don’t know if you’re even going to be able to get on the show. We can’t promise you that.” So we were telling them, “Don’t come, don’t waste your money.” They said, “We’re going to go anyway. And even if we can’t get in we’ll just stand outside and we’ll scream for you guys.”

Awe!

Yeah, so they went there and we didn’t initially know that they were going. We actually met up with them because they texted us, “Hey! We’re out here.” And we go out there and there’s like 50 student council kids there and they’re all in their spirit shirts.

They saw this huge group of kids waiting outside and said, “What are you doing?” They said, “We’re waiting for Anthony and Jacob!” So they brought them into the Riff Raff Room and it was just amazing.

So how was your prom, and did The Ellen Show follow up?

Yeah, they came and filmed us at our dance. They filmed us saying hi to Ellen. And the dance overall was awesome. Everyone was just super excited to see us there. People wanted to take pictures with us back and forth. 

Did you guys arrive together?

Yeah, we arrived together. We were together the entire day. We had dinner at TAO inside The Venetian. Then we went to the dance. And I told Jacob, “We’re going to slow dance. We have to slow dance. I mean you asked me to prom. We were going to plan this out anyway.” And he was like, “You’re right. We did plan this.” We both love Sam Smith, and he said, “Okay, you can pick the song.” I responded, “I wasn’t going to ask you anyway.” And I picked “Latch” acoustic. It was just a really good song to slow dance to. Beforehand I told him, “Look, you may be my first dance, but you’re not gay and I’m not a girl, so we’re going to have to leave space between us for the whole experience.”So we practiced slow dancing a little bit beforehand. It was very funny because we both have left feet basically. We got into the ballroom and they started playing the song. We thought that everyone around us was going to dance with us like a normal slow song. Instead, people circled around us and started pulling out their video cameras to film us.

Anthony, if you could share a message with straight people who are less than understanding, what would that be?

My message to straight people is probably what Jacob would say, because we agree on this – you really just have to be open-minded. Because if Jacob would have let me having a crush on him get in the way of us even talking or being friends, we wouldn’t even be able to hang out like we do now, we wouldn’t be able to text each other whenever we have questions like we do now, we wouldn’t be able to be each other’s rock like we are now. We found a friendship that maybe wasn’t common, but it can definitely be common if people just decide to open up their minds and realize that gay people are really no different from regular people. And my message to kids that identify as part of the LGBT community would be, you’re going to face a lot of denial. Before I met Jacob I got put down a lot. I was called fag, queer, I was pushed into lockers. I know not every single straight person will be open-minded right away. There are obviously those who are closed-minded who won’t even give you another chance to look at them. But it’s okay. You just have to keep trying, because if I would’ve given up I would have never met Jacob, and I’m just very thankful for him. You just always have to be the stronger and better person.

You and Jacob both got $10,000 from Ellen. What are your plans for that money and for your future?

It’s been real crazy with that money actually. A lot of people weren’t happy that we got it, just because they think it should go to the LGBT community. Which I agree with, totally, but we didn’t ask for the money and we’re both going to use it towards college. I know I’m using it for pre-law studies. LGBTQ history – I’m hopefully taking a class on that. And, in addition, political science. I hope to go into the political field and become a congressman or even an LGBT activist. I always tell people, “I hope when I get older I don’t have to be an LGBT activist.” Not for the point that I don’t want to do it, but hopefully when I get older I won’t have to fight for rights because hopefully by then we’ll have them. 

Gay Vegas hopes for the same Anthony!