DaBaby apologized Monday after two more music festivals removed him from their line-ups over homophobic and misinformed comments he made late last month.
Organizers of The Governors Ball in New York City said in a statement that the festival “does not and will not tolerate hate or discrimination of any kind” and booted the rapper from the September event. The Day N Vegas festival, set for November, also cancelled DaBaby’s appearance.
Over the weekend, DaBaby was dropped from his headlining spot at Lollapalooza in Chicago.
“Social media moves so fast that people want to demolish you before you even have the opportunity to grow, educate and learn from your mistakes,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “As a man who has had to make his own way from very difficult circumstances, having people I know publicly working against me – knowing that what I needed was education on these topics and guidance – has been challenging.”
DaBaby apologized to the LGBTQ+ community “for the hurtful and triggering comments I made” and “for my misinformed comments about HIV/AIDS.”
During his set at Rolling Loud in Miami Gardens on July 25, DaBaby told the crowd: “If you didn’t show up today with HIV, AIDS – any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that’ll make you die in two or three weeks – put your cellphone light up … Fellas, if you ain’t sucking n***a d**k in the parking lot, put your cellphone light up.”
Faced with criticism on social media, the rapper went on Instagram to declare that his gay fans “got class” and “ain’t sucking no d**k in no parking lot.”
Among those slamming DaBaby for his comments were Madonna, Elton John and Dua Lipa.
“If you’re going to make hateful remarks to the LGBTQ+ community about HIV/AIDS then know your facts,” Madonna wrote in an Instagram post. “People like you are the reason we are still living in a world divided by fear.”
John wrote: “This fuels stigma and discrimination and is the opposite of what our world needs to fight the AIDS epidemic.”
Lipa, who featured DaBaby on her hit “Levitating,” said she was “surprised and horrified” by his words and did not “recognize this as the person I worked with.”
Last Tuesday, DaBaby followed up with: “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 next day, he released a music video for a track that includes the line: “B**ch, we like AIDS / I’m on your a** / We on your a**, b**ch / We won’t go away.”
The video ends with “Don’t Fight Hate With Hate” in the colours of the LGBT rainbow flag, and “My apologies for being me the same way you want the freedom to be you.”