Sacramento single mom goes viral in emotional TikTok video showing reaction to passing bar exam
SACRAMENTO – A single mother of two in Sacramento went viral for her TikTok that melted hearts showing her reaction to passing the California Bar exam on her first try.
The TikTok video which has nearly 30 million views shows a raw, tear-filled reaction from single mom Rhianna Gordon and her two kids, Flinn,12, and Rhiley, 10, seeing her results that she passed the California bar exam.
"You can be anything and decide what you want and go after it," Gordon said.
Gordon told CBS13 she defied the odds: a single mom in her 30s, a woman of color, a domestic violence survivor and now an attorney.
During the pandemic, she decided it was time to change careers from working for the state's Department of Transportation to pursuing her passion: crime and justice.
"People will gladly tell you no, don't tell yourself no first," Gordon said.
After studying, taking the LSAT and applying to schools, Gordon got her first acceptance to uC Law San Francisco, thinking she may have to uproot her family's lives. Then she got accepted to UC Davis.
"I was able to keep the kids in my home," Gordon said. "I was able to keep the kids in their sports and in their schools. You know we have a life established locally."
As she expected, the next three years were not easy.
"It made me have to ask for help and it's ok there's no shame in that," Gordon said.
She said she had to ask loved ones for help at times to take care of her kiddos and documented some of her days in a life in law school on TikTok.
"There were 260 of us that graduated and I was the only one who was a single parent," Gordon said.
Receiving her diploma was not quite the finish line, she needed to pass California's bar exam, which has one of the lowest pass rates in the country.
Her kids were visibly so proud of their mother in the viral TikTok after watching everything she sacrificed to achieve this.
"People are like oh look how happy they are, and I am like that emotion was relief," Gordon said. "What I have instilled in my kids, whether I meant to or not, is that you work hard, and it pays off."
It is something special that she hopes inspires others to chase their dreams too.
"It's not a question of if," Gordon said. "It's I am going to do this now how do I figure out how to get it done."
Gordon started working at the California Department of Justice in the honors program in September. She said she is loving the work she is doing and also enjoying more time with her kids, getting to go to all of their year-round soccer and softball practices and games.
She is thankful for all the support she has received since going viral and said any aspiring attorneys are more than welcome to reach out to learn more about her journey.
