Among this year’s crop of prom photos stands a king who’s a sensation.
Adam Bell, 18, voted prom king at South Carolina’s Powdersville High School, has taken social media by storm.
Because he wore a dress. A beautiful one.
That social-media storm stirred some rough winds — nasty comments from haters — followed by a rainbow of love from his classmates. And the rest of us.
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To win the honor, Bell received 49 percent of his classmates’ votes in the school of 840 students, a strong statement in the northwest South Carolina community, halfway between Atlanta and Charlotte, in the heart of the conservative South.
Much to the school’s credit, it supported Bell, who is openly gay.
The vote mirrors a generational divide. Bell told WSPA TV, in nearby Spartanburg, that the negative comments were coming from adults in the community.
“But the kids were actually the ones standing up to the adults and being more supportive than ever,” Bell said.
“I greatly appreciate all my friends and even people I haven’t talked to at the school who were standing up to the adults and even their own parents who would comment.”
He broke no dress code with his outfit, but because of the negative comments directed toward him specifically, the school district pulled his picture and its whole Facebook page to protect him, a school district representative said. Bell thanked the school for watching out for him.
He’s worn a dress to a school function before, he said.
“Wearing a dress is like my version of dressing up, where like most guys’ version is wearing a tux, and mine is more feminine,” he said.
The prom outfit was a white top from Victoria’s Secret and a green velvet skirt from House of CB, he told Teen Vogue.
For this prom king, the positive comments far outweighed the negative ones.
“For every one negative comment, I was responding back to seven positive comments,” he said.
