Sir Elton John is “shocked” by DaBaby’s homophobic comments at Rolling Loud.
Sir Elton John
The 'Suge' hitmaker was criticised for the comments he made about sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV and AIDs, during his set at the festival over the weekend.
And now, openly gay music legend Elton has spoken out to condemn DaBaby’s comments, as he said “mistruths” about HIV have “no place in our society”.
Elton’s personal Twitter account posted: “We’ve been shocked to read about the HIV misinformation and homophobic statements made at a recent DaBaby show. This fuels stigma and discrimination and is the opposite of what our world needs to fight the AIDs epidemic.
“Homophobic and HIV mistruths have no place in our society and industry and as musicians, we must spread compassion and love for the most marginalised people in our communities. A musician’s job is to bring people together.”
The ‘Tiny Dancer’ singer – who founded the Elton John AIDs Foundation in 1992 with the mission of ending the AIDs pandemic – went on to share three separate tweets detailing facts about HIV which debunked comments made by DaBaby.
The tweets read: “HIV has affected over 70 million people globally: men, women, children and the most vulnerable people in our communities.
“In America, a gay black man has a 50 perfect lifetime chance of contracting HIV. Stigma and shame around HIV and homosexuality is a huge driver of this vulnerability. We need to break down the myths and judgements and not fuel these.
“You can live a long and healthy life with HIV. Treatment is so advanced that with one pill a day, HIV can become undetectable in your body so you can’t pass it onto other people.”
During his set, DaBaby - whose real name is Jonathan Kirk - made controversial remarks which referenced homophobia in relation to sexually transmitted diseases.
He said: "If you didn’t show up today with HIV, AIDS, or any of them deadly sexually-transmitted diseases, that’ll make you die in two to three weeks, then put your cell phone lighter up…
"Fellas, if you ain’t sucking d*** in the parking lot, put your cell phone lighter up.”
DaBaby initially doubled down on his comments after the show, but ultimately chose to apologise on Twitter on Tuesday (27.07.21).
He wrote: “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. (sic)”
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