Going viral amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Mollee Gray, Jeka Jane and Kent Boyd created their own TikTok collective — the Pride House LA — kind of by accident.
Former Disney Channel stars Mollee and Kent knew each other after working together on Teen Beach Movie in 2013, so when she made a TikTok video inspired by the film that went viral, they decided to make more. So, they recruited Mollee’s husband, Jeka — whom she married in 2017 — and the rest is history.
“Mollee was like, ‘Oh my Teen Beach Movie TikTok popped off’ and then noticed that Kent and one of our other friends were also making TikToks,” Jeka told J-14 exclusively about the house’s formation while promoting their new “Pride House LA” podcast. Kent added, “It worked. It was fun. It was during the pandemic, we’re all artists.”
Jeka explained that something that “connected” everyone was being members of the LGBTQ+ community. Mollee, for her part, quipped, “We’re all, kind of, old. We were like, let’s learn this [dance].”
When their content started to blow up online, the members decided to recruit JoJo Siwa for a now-viral collaboration that launched the Dance Moms alum’s coming out journey.
“I’ve known her since she was tiny. I used to go to her dance studio,” Mollee explained to J-14 of her connection to JoJo. When they first started throwing around the ideas for a collaboration, the Pride House TikTok didn’t even exist yet. “We had just started Pride House LA maybe a week or two before [the collab].”
@kentboyd_ Now your one of us!! @itsjojosiwa @molleegray @garrettclayton91 @jekajane #pridehousela
When the J Team star made her debut on the Pride House account, JoJo hadn’t told any of the members she was a part of the LGBTQ+ community. “She said that she was like trying to, but she didn’t know how,” Mollee shared.
“I’m telling you, the space we create when we come over to people that are, like, questioning or in the community, we really do a good job of allowing a flow and a natural thing to occur,” Kent explained of the community the Pride House has created. “We want you to feel safe, but we for sure speak our queer stories just by walking. … Just like how we make people feel is fun.”
Other than making TikTok videos, Mollee, Jeka and Kent launched their “Pride House LA” podcast in December 2021 as a way to “continue opening up conversations for people all around the world to hear us, love us and want us to be in their community, wherever that is.”
Kent continued, “I want my whole family, everyone in the community, to feel safe and to feel welcomed and to feel loved.”
Through the community that they love, the Pride House members just want to continue “spreading the love and self-love.”
“Pride to me means being vulnerable and open self-loving — loving who you are and spreading that love,” Jeka told J-14. “I think pride is definitely, like, I just a picture a rainbow and just shining at everybody.”
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