Charlotte rapper DaBaby dropped from Lollapalooza lineup after homophobic comments
Charlotte rapper DaBaby has been dropped from Sunday’s Lollapalooza festival lineup following remarks he made about gay people last week.
“Lollapalooza was founded on diversity, inclusivity, respect, and love,” the Chicago music festival said on Twitter Sunday. “With that in mind, DaBaby will no longer be performing at Grant Park tonight.”
DaBaby’s removal comes after the 29-year-old rapper made homophobic comments while addressing the crowd at a Miami concert last weekend.
Young Thug will perform in DaBaby’s place at the four-day festival.
What DaBaby said
DaBaby, whose real name is Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, acknowledged his comments Monday in a five-minute video posted to his Instagram with 19.2 million followers and denounced critics who claimed he offended gay fans at the concert, the Observer previously reported.
“I said, ‘If you don’t got AIDS, put a cellphone lighter up ... All the lights went up – gay or straight – you wanna know why? Because even my gay fans don’t got AIDS. My gay fans, they take care of themselves ... They ain’t no junkies on the street,” he said in Monday’s video.
On Twitter Tuesday, DaBaby apologized for his comments, which drew backlash from fans and many members of the music community, including Elton John and Madonna.
The rapper, who’s been nominated for several Grammy Awards, said “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.”
He included a prayer hands emoji before adding: “But the LGBT community ... I ain’t trippin on y’all, do you. y’all business is y’all business.”
This story was originally published August 1, 2021 at 2:03 PM with the headline "Charlotte rapper DaBaby dropped from Lollapalooza lineup after homophobic comments."
