A New Bromance? Christie Cries after Springsteen Hugs Him

There’s one thing that’ll get a tough New Jersey guy to admit he cries — and that’s getting to say he’s finally friends with Bruce Springsteen.

Springsteen has kept Gov. Chris Christie at arm’s length for several years because of disagreements over politics, and even now, it took two powerful forces to bring them together — Hurricane Sandy and President Barack Obama.

Christie has seen the Boss in concert over 130 times, but they’ve only met briefly twice: on a plane in 1999 and at the 2010 New Jersey Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Both times, they only “exchanged formal pleasantries” but Christie said Springsteen was “very kind” to his children, according to Rolling Stone.

But Christie and Boss spoke for a while at NBC’s telethon held to raise money for victims of the worst hurricane ever to hit the Garden State, and Christie said Springsteen told him he was proud of the job he was doing. Springsteen repeated that sentiment on stage in Rochester, New York.

And Obama arranged another chat between Christie and Springsteen, who is campaigning for the president’s re-election.

I told the President today actually that the hug was great and when we got home there was a lot of weeping because of the hug. And the President asked why and I said, ‘To be honest, I was the one who was weeping. Everybody else was fine.’

And Obama, who invited Springsteen to travel with him on Air Force One, put Springsteen on the phone with the Republican governor.

He told me that in times of real difficulty that he thought that the only thing better than one Jersey guy were two Jersey guys and he put Bruce Springsteen on the phone. Bruce said to me how proud he was of his state and how proud he was of the people in this state and how tough they are and he’ll be back to the Jersey Shore soon. We had a good conversation today and it was great to talk to the President and even better to talk to Bruce.

One…two…three…AWWW.