TMZ Says the LGBTQ+ Community Forgave DaBaby, Community Is Confused

After unfurling a slew of homophobic comments on stage at a music festival earlier this summer, rapper DaBaby has largely been dropped from many of his headlining performances. 

Following the incident, many members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies called DaBaby out, including Elton John and Madonna. Pop star Dua Lipa even stopped promoting her remix of "Levitating" featuring the rapper. After meeting with some LGBTQ+ groups, DaBaby later apologized "for the hurtful and triggering comments I made. Again, I apologize for my misinformed comments about HIV/AIDS and I know education on this is important. Love to all. God bless." 

Since then, he's been laying relatively low. For many LGBTQ+ folks, the name is nothing more than a memory. 

Fast forward to this last weekend where 50 Cent brought out DaBaby during his headlining performance at Rolling Loud’s New York Festival. The move proved risky and has kicked up a new whirlwind of drama, but TMZ tried to assuage it by running a story claiming the LGBTQ+ community forgave the rapper and approved of the performance. Blogs across the internet have run with the news, even citing the approval of an LGBTQ+ CEO. 

As any LGBTQ+ person could likely tell you, there is no official spokesperson or organization for our community. We're made up of a wide variety of people and experiences and certainly aren't a monolith. Forgiveness is up to the individual person and the idea that someone out there could forgive DaBaby for all of us is obviously ridiculous.

It quickly turned into a meme. 

To add to the chaos of the situation, the LGBTQ+ organization TMZ initially cited has said they were "grossly misquoted."

They initially reported that Gwendolyn D. Clemons, CEO of Relationship Unleashed, approved of DaBaby’s appearance, as well as any other concerts he performs at in the future. Relationship Uncleashed cleared up on Instagram that that wasn't the case at all.

“Our organization stands on strong principles of being defenders of the LGBTQIA Community and nothing has changed,” their statement reads. “We will never normalize ‘trash TV or trash news stories!’ Today we were [engulfed] by the news outlet in a fire we did not start! Our comments to a brief question was grossly misquoted and intentionally framed in a click-baiting headline to drive traffic to TMZ.”

They continued, “We have written and repeatedly spoke with the News [Editor] @jacobwasserman to retract, correct, or delete this erroneous story. As of this time some modifications have been made but not enough to our satisfaction. We vehemently deny this assertion and the reporting does not align with our values or mission.”

The drama of it all...

So is DaBaby forgiven or not? No clue, that's up to the people to decide.