Paralympian Jessica Long's Toyota Ad Is a Must-Watch

Warning: You will cry.

jessica long
(Image credit: Harry How)
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If you didn't tear up watching Toyota's Super Bowl LV ad with Paralympian Jessica Long...well, you might want to see someone about that. The moving commercial, a love letter to both adoption and the disabled community, showed the parents of the now-gold medalist—they're played by actors, but it's a true story—getting the call that the daughter they hoped to adopt would need to have both her legs amputated. "It might not be easy, but it'll be amazing," Long's mom, who's played by an actor in the commercial, tearfully responds. "I can't wait to meet her."

The commercial shows Long swimming through milestones in her life, from learning to walk to swimming competitively—all the time watched by her adoring parents. The scenes unfold as the voiceover says: "Mrs. Long? We've found a baby girl for your adoption, but there's some things you need to know...She was born with a rare condition. Her legs will need to be amputated...Her life, it won't be easy."

And people are loving it (and crying, because, I mean, did you see that?):

[twitter align='center' id='1358578907931422720' username='DavidAFrench']https://twitter.com/DavidAFrench/status/1358578907931422720[/twitter]

“I love that the spot highlights not just the gold medals and accomplishments but the challenging journey to get there,” Long said in a statement.

Jenny Hollander
Jenny Hollander
Digital Director

Jenny is the Digital Director at Marie Claire. A graduate of Leeds University, and a native of London, she moved to New York in 2012 to attend the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She was the first intern at Bustle when it launched in 2013 and spent five years building out its news and politics department. In 2018 she joined Marie Claire, where she held the roles of Deputy Digital Editor and Director of Content Strategy before becoming Digital Director. Working closely with Marie Claire's exceptional editorial, audience, commercial, and e-commerce teams, Jenny oversees the brand's digital arm, with an emphasis on driving readership. When she isn't editing or knee-deep in Google Analytics, you can find Jenny writing about television, celebrities, her lifelong hate of umbrellas, or (most likely) her dog, Captain. In her spare time, she writes fiction: her first novel, the thriller EVERYONE WHO CAN FORGIVE ME IS DEAD, was published with Minotaur Books (UK) and Little, Brown (US) in February 2024 and became a USA Today bestseller. She has also written extensively about developmental coordination disorder, or dyspraxia, which she was diagnosed with when she was nine.