Lost all but 2 friends overnight at 17
After being outed as gay at 17 via a bathroom incident at a student bar, Robby Hoffman lost virtually all of her friends the next day.
Snapshot · The Daily
Robby Hoffman Will Always Feel Poor, No Matter How Rich She Gets
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Jun 27, 2026
Where this was said
Outed at 17: The Bathroom Stall, the Cafeteria Walk, and Almost No Friends Left
At 25:00 · chapter starts 23:05
Hoffman takes Garcia-Navarro through the outing in careful, almost cinematic detail. She had a girlfriend — Italian, who wanted to be public — but Hoffman was not willing to come out. She was already living alone, working nearly full-time, studying full-time, and simply could not take on another thing. At a student bar one night, she slipped into a bathroom stall with her girlfriend. The door swung open. A girl from school saw them. Something was clearly going on. [1] — Robby Hoffman "Robby Hoffman was 17 when a bathroom stall door swung open at a student bar, and by the next day she had lost almost every friend she had. …" 23:05 By the next day, Hoffman says it felt like everybody knew. Walking through the cafeteria — like a scene from A Walk to Remember — she could hear the whispers. She lost all but two friends overnight at 17. She credits a friend named Malay and a friend named Allie, whose mother had always been kind, with being a lifeline when almost everyone else disappeared. She describes it, plainly and without drama, as lucky to have survived.
Outed at 17: Losing All Your Friends Overnight
Robby Hoffman was 17 when a bathroom stall door swung open at a student bar, and by the next day she had lost almost every friend she had. She describes walking through the cafeteria to whispers as one of the worst moments of her life — saved only by two friends who reached out and said they didn't care.
Studied accounting at McGill
Robby Hoffman studied accounting at McGill University, working under her given name Rivka at an accounting firm while performing standup as Robbie to keep the two lives separate.
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