She accidentally hugged a stranger at Wawa. Now the Florida blogger is on the ‘Ellen’ show

Ellen DeGeneres talks to Mary Katherine Backstrom on today's episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," filmed at the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, Calif. (Photo: Michael Rozman/Warner Bros.)

She hugged a stranger in a Wawa parking lot — completely by accident.

Now Mary Katherine Backstrom’s laugh-filled story, told in a viral video last week, has landed the Fort Myers, Florida, blogger on Tuesday’s episode of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

Backstrom, 35, couldn’t believe that she got to sit across from TV host Ellen DeGeneres. She filmed the episode Monday in Los Angeles.

“You know, I kind of blacked out, to be honest!” she jokes to the Fort Myers News-Press, part of the USA TODAY Network. “There was a lot of laughs and giggles and me telling her I loved her a lot.

“It’s something I’ll never forget. She’s always been one of my heroes.”

In the episode, DeGeneres praises Backstrom after showing the viral video to her audience. “Mary Katherine, you’re marvelous,” the TV host tells her. “Oh my God, this is so fantastic. … It’s contagious just to watch you laugh through that whole thing.”

Then DeGeneres talks about all the good deeds that Backstrom has done, including paying her friends’ bills, helping a waitress get her car fixed and donating a kidney to her uncle. To reward those good deeds, she gives Backstrom an over-sized check for $20,000.

“You’ve done so many other things,” DeGeneres says. “So even though you don’t have a lot of money, whenever you have any extra money, you find a way to pay it forward. That’s amazing.”

Backstrom’s not sure what she and her husband will do with that $20,000. Maybe they’ll pay off some of their student loans, she says. And they’ll likely use it to help people or do some sort of “random act of kindness” in Southwest Florida.

“We feel like it’s this magic pot of money,” she says, “and we’ve got to do something special with it. We just haven’t figured out what yet.”

Backstrom is a popular blogger who writes under the name Mom Babble. She posted the video Dec. 6 on Facebook and later on YouTube. Since then, the Facebook video — titled “My Most Embarrassing Moment (Christmas is SO Magical)” — has racked up over 79 million views.

In the video, Backstrom says she was full of the holiday spirit when she left a Fort Myers area Wawa convenience store and saw a stranger cleaning the windshield of what looked like her own car.

“I see this man,” she says. “He’s cleaning my windshield. And I’m convinced this is the Christmas magic. And so I’m like, ‘Oh gosh, I just love this time of year, you know?’

Ellen DeGeneres rewards Fort Myers blogger Mary Katherine Backstrom for her good deeds during a taping of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." (Photo: Michael Rozman, Michael Rozman/Warner Bros.)

“So I walk up to this man, and I am like, ‘This is my favorite part of humanity. I love Christmas so much. Thank you for doin’ this!’ And I give him a hug.”

At this point, Backstrom can’t contain herself in the video, and she starts laughing hysterically.

“It wasn’t my car!” she says through tears. “He was parked directly in front of me, and he was cleaning his own windshield!

“He didn’t know why I was hugging him. I think he thought I was insane!”

Neither she nor the stranger knew what to do next. So she just got in her own car and drove to another spot in the parking lot.

“Anyway I’m sharing this with you’ll because I’m out here huggin’ strangers in the gas station because the magic of Christmas is so powerful,”she says with a laugh. 

Backstrom posted the video right after it happened last week. Twenty minutes later, she says, it had racked up 30,000 views. By Sunday, that had skyrocketed to millions.

“It’s just bizarre,” she says now. “The internet is such a funny place. It’s been a very surreal experience.

“As crazy as it’s all been, it’s been a fun ride. It’s been fun!”

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