Madonna schools ‘ignorant’ DaBaby over ‘hateful’ HIV rant in scathing open letter
Madonna wrote on Instagram that she wants to “put my cellphone lighter up and pay for” DaBaby’s “ignorance” following his homophobic remarks. (Getty/Karwai Tang/WireImage/Jason Koerne)
Madonna has penned a searing open letter to DaBaby, condemning the rapper’s “hateful” comments and “ignorance” on HIV.
DaBaby has faced scathing backlash after he made comments about gay men “sucking d**k” in the parking lot and people living with HIV, claiming they “die in two, three weeks”, at the Rolling Loud festival on Sunday (25 July).
“If you didn’t show up today with HIV, AIDS, any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that’ll make you die in two, three weeks, then put your cellphone light up,” DaBaby said.
“Ladies, if your p***y smell like water, put a cellphone light them up. Fellas, if you ain’t sucking d**k in the parking lot put your cellphone light up.”
The rapper issued a limp apology for his “insensitive” comments about people living with HIV – but didn’t apologise to the LGBT+ community. Days later, he released a new song referencing AIDS and posted a lengthy, defensive Instagram post complaining about the “substantial amount of people” who “refuse to understand” his logic.
Madonna is having none of it. The pop legend posted an open letter telling DaBaby he should “know [his] facts” if he is going to spout off “hateful remarks to the LGBTQ+ community about HIV/AIDS”.
View this post on Instagram
“I want to put my cellphone lighter up and pray for your ignorance, no one dies of AIDS in 2 or 3 weeks anymore. Thank God,” she wrote.
“And your sexist remarks about ladies who’s p*****s need to smell like water only encourage more discrimination against women who fight daily against the oppression of living under the constraints of the Male Gaze.
“People like you are the reason we are still living in a world divided by fear. All Human beings should be treated with dignity and respect regardless of race, gender, sexual preference or religious beliefs. AMEN.”
The singer highlighted how there are now life-saving medicines “available to children born with HIV“, and to people who contract HIV through “blood transfusions, dirty needles” or the “exchange of bodily fluids”.
She explained these advances in medicine were only achieved after “decades of hard won scientific research”, and that these “new” antiretrovirals can “keep a person with AIDS alive for the rest of their lives”.
Madonna has decades of LGBT+ allyship and HIV activism under her belt.
In 1989, she released her album Like A Prayer which included a card insert titled “The Facts About AIDS”.
She has advocated for greater research into HIV and AIDS treatments and raised funding for children who lost their parents due to HIV and AIDS through her charity Raising Malawi.
In 2019, Madonna received the GLAAD Media Awards’ Advocate for Change honour because of her AIDS and LGBT+ activism. During her acceptance speech, she tearfully remembered the friends she lost after moving to New York City at the apex of the AIDS crisis.
The “Vogue” singer described AIDS as a “plague” that “moved in like a black cloud” over the city and “took out all of my friends” in “a blink of an eye”. She recalled that after the lost of her “best friend and roommate” Martin Burgoyne and artist Keith Haring she decided to “take up the bull horn and really fight back”.
Madonna is far from the first celebrity to speak out against DaBaby’s disgusting remarks
Elton John, Demi Lovato, Dua Lipa, Laverne Cox and Leslie Jordan have all condemned DaBaby’s comments. Lil Nas X’s father even firmly put the musician in his place and told him to “sit down”.
Thus far, T.I. is seemingly DaBaby’s most vocal celebrity ally. The music artist and reality star said he believes the LGBT+ community is “bullying” straight rappers in the wake of the backlash against DaBaby’s incendiary Rolling Loud performance.
He also previous tried to defend DaBaby by comparing the rapper’s vile remarks about gay people and HIV to Lil Nas X proudly living his truth in his music.
DaBaby’s homophobia has also lost him a partnership with fashion brand BoohooMan.
