During Lil Nas X‘s performance of “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” during the 2021 BET Awards on Monday (Jun. 29, 2021), the rapper ended his set by kissing a male dancer while dressed as an Egyptian pharaoh.
Conservatives had a field day with the kiss, and Lil Nas X responded in the best way, tweeting, “y’all hate yourselves so much. y’all live your lives trying your best to appease straight ppl. y’all are uncomfortable with what i do because y’all are afraid they will be uncomfortable with you. work on yourselves, i love who i am and whatever i decide to do. get there.”
y’all hate yourselves so much. y’all live your lives trying your best to appease straight ppl. y’all are uncomfortable with what i do because y’all are afraid they will be uncomfortable with you. work on yourselves, i love who i am and whatever i decide to do. get there. https://t.co/oHoYkux98F
There were some people who compared the onstage kiss to when Adam Lambert kissed his keyboard player while performing on the American Music Awards in 2009 and the world FREAKED OUT.
Of those comparisons, Lambert told Billboard, “I was pulled off of ABC for a little while,” he says. “They were freaked out, they had Christian parent groups writing in, the censors were freaked out. The thing I found so funny was like, ‘Censors? It’s a kiss! When was that indecent?'”
These days, Adam says, “Two men kissing is sort of old news. Of course, there’s still a lot of problems, and there’s still a lot of work to be done, but I think for a lot of people, we’ve moved past the shock and the alien nature of seeing gay representation in action….I’m just happy to be able to have the perspective to appreciate it.”
As for Lil Nas X’s kiss, “I thought it was hot,” he said with a laugh. “I mean, he’s really giving it to us. I think he is definitely like the gay pop star that is 2021 — he’s bold, he’s controversial, he’s pushing boundaries. That’s what we want our pop stars to do. It’s just taken this long to have it be a gay one.”
Madonna also felt that she had to weigh in on the kiss, posting to her Instagram Story an image of Lil Nas’ onstage kiss above another picture of her own famous kiss with Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears at the 2003 MTV VMAs. She captioned it: “#diditfirst.”
Photo via Madonna/Instagram
Fans were not here for the post and Madonna making the moment about herself and not letting Lil Nas X have his moment.
Imagine being this big ally(?) To the community and when you see one of us do well you decide to centre yourself. If that's not an apt metaphor for ALLYSHIP
