Even before he set the internet ablaze with his controversial BET Awards performance, Lil Nas X had reservations about the elaborate, Egyptian-themed set.
The Billboard chart history-making, two-time Grammy Award winner opened up about the nerves he felt when hitting the stage at the popular Black entertainment-themed awards show, where he tongue-kissed a male dancer on stage.
“Going to this place with all these overly masculine rappers and you’re finna be in there throwing a little a— every now and then, touching on dudes and hugging them and kissing them … at some points I was like, ‘Should I even do this? I don’t feel like they’re going to love me like that,’” Lil Nas X told Out magazine for its September cover story.
“[People always say] go where you’re accepted and stuff like that, but you can’t always just go where you’re accepted,” he added about the network, which hasn’t traditionally been welcoming to the LTGTBQ+ community. “You’ve got to go and break down those walls and say, ‘This is my space now too.’”
But the meteoric success the former TikTok sensation achieved over the past two years — since “Old Town Road” dominated radio and streaming platforms — is undeniable.
The 22-year-old Atlanta-area native, who revealed he is gay in June 2019, described the pressures of being himself and also representing the LGTBQ+ community is mentally “really draining and straining.”
“The pressure of living your entire life knowing the identity of what a rapper is supposed to be, what rappers [are supposed to] do, and going out there in front of all these people, it’s terrifying,” Lil Nas X shared. “[The BET performance] was like jumping in a lake full of sharks and piranhas — and I’ve had to do that so many times within these last three years. Even coming out, that was terrifying.”
