“I really don’t recognize this as the person I worked with,” the pop star said of her “Levitating” collaborator, whose sexist, anti-LGBTQ comments have stunned fans.
Dua Lipa reiterated her support for the LGBTQ community this week in response to sexist and homophobic comments made by rapper DaBaby, a recent collaborator.
In a strongly worded note posted to her Instagram Stories on Tuesday, the pop star said she was “surprised and horrified” by DaBaby’s comments, which were captured for posterity in a TMZ video.
“I really don’t recognize this as the person I worked with,” she added. “I know my fans know where my heart lies and that I stand 100% with the LGTBQ community. We need to come together to fight the stigma and ignorance around HIV/AIDS.”
DaBaby appears on a remix of “Levitating,” the third single from Lipa’s Grammy-winning 2020 album, “Future Nostalgia.” The track is currently No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, which ranks the 100 most popular songs in the U.S.
Some fans have urged Lipa to replace DaBaby’s appearance on “Levitating” with another artist, or for radio stations to abandon his version in favor of the Blessed Madonna remix, which features Madonna and Missy Elliott.
The fallout continued Wednesday when men’s fashion company boohooMAN announced it would end its partnership with DaBaby over the comments.
The controversy began Sunday night when DaBaby, whose real name is Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, made derogatory remarks about women, gay men and those living with HIV/AIDS during his performance at the Rolling Loud Festival in Miami.
In TMZ’s footage, the rapper urges fans to put their phones up “if you didn’t show up today with HIV/AIDS, or other STDs that’ll make you die in two to three weeks.”
“Ladies, if your pussy smell like water, put your cell phone lighter up,” he added. “Fellas, if you ain’t sucking n*gga dick in the parking lot, put your cell phone lighter up.”
After the comments drew widespread condemnation from LGBTQ advocacy groups, DaBaby attempted to backpedal on social media.
“What I do at a live show is for the live show,” he said in an Instagram video Monday, according to Billboard. “It’ll never translate correctly to somebody looking at a little five- or six-second clip from their crib on their phone.”
The rapper issued a more formal apology Tuesday.
“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,” he tweeted. “But the LGBT community… I ain’t trippin on y’all, do you. Y’all business is y’all business.”
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