The rapper made insensitive comments about those diagnosed with HIV/AIDS during his set at Miami’s Rolling Loud Music Festival.
What We Know:
- DaBaby‘s rapidly rising fame came to a halt after recordings of him saying homophobic remarks surfaced on social media. While performing, the artist, whose real name is Jonathan Kirk, asked his fans to put their cellphone lights in the air if they didn’t show up to the festival with “HIV, AIDS, any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that’ll make you die in two or three weeks;” this comment provided misinformation on HIV/AIDS to the crowd. DaBaby also proceeded to make lewder comments as his set went on.
- Several celebrities revealed their disappointment with DaBaby after the footage went viral. Dua Lipa, who previously worked with him on her song “Levitating,” stated on her Instagram story she felt “surprised and horrified” by his words. She went on to say she did not “recognize this as the person I worked with” and stood “100% with the LGBTQ community.” RuPaul’s Drag Race star Trinity K. Bonet also criticized DaBaby in a tweet in which she provided information on HIV transmission. Twitch streamer Hasan Piker added to the social media backlash by saying DaBaby’s comments emitted “90s era homophobia” energy, and calling him “DaBoomer”.
Hey @DaBabyDaBaby 🥶🥶🥶undetectable = untrabnsmittable … U = U …that will educate you on at-least one of them dumb ass comments you made..
— Trinity K. Bonet (@trinitykbonet) July 26, 2021
- Despite the scrutiny, DaBaby did not initially apologize. Instead, he took to his Instagram stories and told his critics to “shut the f*** up.” He additionally said what he does during live shows is for those audiences. Furthermore, he declared he will not explain said actions to somebody looking at a clip on their phone. A few slides later, DaBaby wrote more outlandish remarks.
“All the lights went up, gay or straight. You wanna know why? Because even my gay fans don’t got f****** AIDS… They don’t got AIDS. My gay fans, they take care of theyself, they ain’t going for that. They ain’t no nasty gay n*****. They ain’t no junkies on the street,” DaBaby proceeded to say.
- DaBaby did not show any signs of remorse until brands and events began to drop him. Last week, boohooMAN, an online retail store, kicked off the rapper’s cancellation by announcing they would no longer work with him. BoohooMAN stated the company prioritizes diversity and inclusion, does not tolerate hate speech, and that it stands in solidarity with the LGBTQ community.
- After this, DaBaby released an apology on Twitter. He reported that anyone suffering from HIV or AIDS has a right to be upset and that he did not intend on offending anyone. He also addressed the LGBTQ community by telling them he has no issue with them.
Anybody who done ever been effected by AIDS/HIV y’all got the right to be upset, what I said was insensitive even though I have no intentions on offending anybody. So my apologies 🙏🏾
But the LGBT community… I ain’t trippin on y’all, do you. y’all business is y’all business.
— DaBaby (@DaBabyDaBaby) July 27, 2021
- Although DaBaby apologized, others quickly followed boohooMAN’s steps. This week, events such as Lollapalooza, Day N Vegas, and Governors Ball canceled his sets and created new lineups.
Alongside this controversy, DaBaby has previously roused negative attention to himself due to violent behavior, drug offenses, and possession of loaded and concealed weapons.
