Lil Nas X Says ‘Delusional’ Self-Belief Made Him a Star

Lil Nas X finally made his reappearance on social media recently after an unexpected hiatus, and he followed it up with a real-life appearance at the iHeartRadio Music Awards on Tuesday night, where he gave an inspiring speech.

The “Industry Baby” singer snatched up the male artist of the year award at the ceremony, to thunderous applause and cheers.

In his acceptance speech, Lil Nas immediately cited a TikTok he saw recently in which a girl encouraged viewers to be delusional.

“And that didn’t make sense to me,” he admitted. “And then I thought about it and I wouldn’t be where I am right now in my life and career if I weren’t delusional.”

“Believing that I could drop out of school and become an international success within a year, it’s delusional. Believing that I could come out of the closet in the height of my career…to think that I could do that would be delusional,” he continued.

“To think that I could make a song about a man lusting after another man in a world where…it’s still legal in many places to be prosecuted and actually be killed for being who you are, for being gay, it’s delusional to think that that song could be the number one song in the world.”

Lil Nas’s speech resonated so much with fans that he actually had to keep stopping as they cheered him on. But he was ultimately able to conclude by encouraging everyone else to feel like it’s okay to be “delusional” while chasing dreams.

The rapper’s skyrocketing to stardom after “Old Town Road” isn’t a level of success that many can likely emulate, and the way he only got more popular after casually tweeting to the whole world that he’s gay back in 2019 shows just how much star power he actually has.

But while not everyone can do with Lil Nas has done, he’s right about one thing — being delusional enough to think you can achieve greatness where so many fail is the only first step towards actually getting it done.