Why Ryan Seacrest was brought to tears by radio contest winner
Ryan Seacrest was touched Wednesday after an emotional interaction with a contest winner reeling from her son’s recent death by suicide.
Juliana Toedt, of Menifee, Calif., recently entered her daughter, a high school senior named Kailey, into Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM’s Ultimate Prom contest. When Seacrest called Toedt to let her know that her daughter would be receiving a $500 gift certificate to Windsor for a dress and $500 Visa gift card for other expenses, she said much more than thank you, revealing the heartbreaking news that one of her eight children, 21-year-old son Isaac, had taken his own life on the very day she entered the contest.
“Our family right now is broken, and this couldn’t have come at a better time. So thank you guys, we appreciate it,” Toedt said. “We have just lost one of our children last week...I want to use this platform...to give out the information to the suicide prevention line to save another family from being broken...This call meant more than we could ever imagine...we're going through a lot of emotions from anger, guilt, just everything, so this call just gave us a little blessing and is helping us a lot.”
In my 15 years of radio, I’ve never been so emotional over a caller’s story. Juliana won a dream prom night for her daughter and told us she lost her son to suicide last week. Juliana shared her story to help anyone who might need it. https://t.co/JJl3PlJkeJ
— Ryan Seacrest (@RyanSeacrest) March 27, 2019
She urged people struggling with thoughts of suicide to seek help.
“Your family really loves you and your family would be devastated to lose you. At times you may be feeling lonely, but there’s somebody out there that loves you and would truly miss you,” she said. “Reach out and call someone. If it’s not your mother or father or siblings, someone will listen, you just have to be willing to speak to someone in order for them to help you … I hope this phone call saves more than one life if it saves one.”
Seacrest said the call deeply affected him.
"It was definitely powerful, and I found it difficult continuing with the show in a way because it was real life and real hard life," Seacrest said on the website for his show, “On Air With Ryan Seacrest.”
While he’s hosted American Idol, Live! With Kelly, and many other shows on TV and radio over the years, Seacrest wasn’t prepared for Toedt’s response to his call. He didn’t know what to say.
“After we went to break, I wanted to thank her for the message she sent,” Seacrest said. “People were already calling in who had been through this before.”
Toedt said many people have reached out to help her family since she spoke with Seacrest. He’s spoken to her again, too.
“We sent them groceries, pizzas, just things to create any normalcy, and that was something we tried to do,” Seacrest said.
If you or someone you know are experiencing suicidal thoughts, call 911, or call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
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