julia roberts tiff

Julia Roberts hugged a superfan on stage in Toronto

Julia Roberts gave one fan who had apparently been waiting 28 years to meet her the thrill of a lifetime when she invited him up on stage to hug her at TIFF last night.

The interaction took place during a Q&A after the screening of Homecoming, a thriller web series Roberts stars in. When fan Kenny Santana stood to speak, he was visibly shaking and nearly in tears with excitement.

That’s when Roberts noticed his Be Love shirt, an activist apparel company she supports. Sales from the “We Are Family” shirt Santana was wearing (and which Roberts also owns) go towards reuniting families separated during the US-Mexico immigrant crisis.

When Santana told Roberts he’d been waiting for this moment for 28 years, she replied with, “What? Get on up here.” Santana struggled to make his way through the crowd, at which point Roberts removed her heels and met him halfway for their embrace.

“He flew from Indonesia,” she exclaimed at the end of their interaction—Santana is a travel blogger, and captured the entire interaction in his Instagram story with comments like “Still shaking, still speechless,” and “Made my entire life.”

Santana also posted selfies with Roberts sitting just a couple rows behind him during the screening.

“Dreams do come true, that’s my lesson for the night,” he says in the story, in a video he took of himself walking out on the street.

Lead photo by

TIFF


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