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 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 Lithia Springs native, whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill and who revealed he is gay in June 2019, said the pressures of being himself and representing the LGTBQ+ community are 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.”
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