DaBaby Offers Second Apology for ‘Misinformed, Hurtful and Triggering’ Comments About AIDS and LGBTQ Community
After his headlining sets at Lollapalooza, Governors Ball and Day N Vegas festivals were canceled within 24 hours of each other, DaBaby has issued another, more articulated apology to the LGBTQ community.
While it starts off defensively, his statement posted to Instagram does include a more thorough apology than the half-baked ones he offered last week in the wake of his homophobic comments about AIDS and the gay community at the Rolling Loud festival and afterward.
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“Social Media moves so fast that people want to demolish you before you even have the opportunity to grow, educate, and learn from your mistakes,” he wrote. “As a man who has had to make his own way from very difficult circumstances, having people I know publicly working against me — knowing that what I needed was education on these topics and guidance — has been challenging. I appreciate the many people who came to me with kindness, who reached out to me privately to offer wisdom, education, and resources. That’s what I needed and it was received.
“I want to apologize to the LGBTQ+ community for the hurtful and triggering comments I made. Again, I apologize for my misinformed comments about HIV/AIDS and I knew education on this is important. Love to all. God bless. – DaBaby”
A rep for GLAAD, which spoke out forcefully against DaBaby’s comments last week (see below), was checking for a response to the rapper’s latest statement at the time of this article’s publication.
During DaBaby’s recent Rolling Loud performance, the rapper encouraged the audience to put their cell phone flashlights in the air if they “didn’t show up today with HIV/AIDS or any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that will make you die in two to three weeks,” among further derogatory remarks about HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ+ people.
The comments quickly sparked backlash on social media, and DaBaby was pulled from his brand ambassador deal with Boohoo Man. His “Levitating” collaborator, Dua Lipa, also spoke out against him, along with other big names like Elton John.
DaBaby later admitted on Twitter that his remarks were “insensitive,” but also suggested that the comments had been “digested” wrong in another tweet, following with statements like “Apologies for being me.” Many have said his responses fall well short of being a sincere apology.
DaShawn Usher, GLAAD’s Associate Director of Communities of Color, said on Wednesday: “The rhetoric that DaBaby used is inaccurate, hurtful, and harmful to the LGBTQ community and the estimated 1.2 million Americans living with HIV. It is critical that DaBaby and his fans learn that people living with HIV today, when on effective treatment, lead long and healthy lives and cannot transmit HIV.
“While DaBaby has made haphazard attempts to ‘apologize,’ actions need to be taken for full accountability and changes to do better in the future. It further confirms what GLAAD reported last year in the State of HIV Stigma Study that stigma and misinformation around HIV is widespread, and there is much work to be done to educate the public, including entertainers.”
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