Watch Kelly Clarkson Surprise Connie Chung With Audience Members Named After Her (VIDEO)

Connie Chung is a legendary trailblazer of the news anchoring world, and her impact has been far and wide — and Kelly Clarkson set out to prove as much during her appearance on Tuesday’s (November 12) edition of The Kelly Clarkson Show.

Chung visited the show to promote her recently-released memoir and talked about why she decided to name her book Connie: A Memoir.

“My husband Maury [Povich] said, ‘You should just name it Connie because there was this phenomenon that a woman discovered, her name was Connie Wong, and she cold emailed me, and she said, ‘I’m named after you,’ and I couldn’t believe it. And so I talked to her on the phone, and she said she was only three when her parents came from communist China to the U.S., and they said, ‘We have to give you an American name.’ And all she knew was what she saw on television, so she said, ‘Connie or Elmo,'” Chung remembered. “What she discovered was there were untold numbers of Asian parents who named their baby daughters Connie after me. And I couldn’t believe it was like, ‘Really?!'”

Chung continued to say, “I went on this book tour and I met six or seven more Connies. It was amazing. And I even met a Connie Chung drag queen.”

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Clarkson then revealed that she had some members of the audience — as well as an NBC page — who were actually named Connie after Chung, asking them to stand up and say hello to their namesake.

“No way!” Chung reacted. 

The page named Connie was then invited to speak to her idol and said, “I’m named after Connie, and you are such an inspiration to me because you have broken so many barriers as the first Asian-American woman on national news… You always remind me to be fearless as well as stay curious. Thank you so much.”

“Thank you,” a visibly touched Chung responded before offering the woman an embrace.

Check out the full clip embedded above.

The Kelly Clarkson Show, weekdays, check local listings