Charlotte rapper DaBaby apologizes for ‘insensitive’ remarks about those with HIV/AIDS

Charlotte rapper DaBaby apologized on Tuesday night for what he called “insensitive” remarks about gay people in a vulgarity-laced Instagram video.

In the video he posted on Monday, DaBaby denounced critics who claimed he bashed gay fans at his concert near Miami the previous night.

“I’m going to address this weak-ass internet (vulgarity) one time, and I’m gonna get back to giving my love to my fans, because what me and my fans do at the live show — it don’t concern you (vulgarity) on the internet or you bitter (vulgarity) on the internet,” DaBaby told his 19.1 million followers in the video posted Monday on Instagram Stories.

DaBaby, whose real name is Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, said in his post that what he does at a live show “is for the audience at the live show. It will never translate correctly to somebody looking at a 5-6 second clip...”

After telling his critics to shut up — with an obscenity — DaBaby says he never went on a “rant” against gay people at his concert.

Still, in his nearly five-minute post, DaBaby repeated the same crude description of a sexual act when referring to his gay fans as he did at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens the previous day, Yahoo! News reported.

Referring to his words at the concert, he added in Monday’s video: “I said, ‘If you don’t got AIDS, put a cellphone lighter up ... All the lights went up – gay or straight – you wanna know why? Because even my gay fans don’t got AIDS. My gay fans, they take care of themselves ... They ain’t no junkies on the street.”

On Twitter Tuesday, DaBaby said, “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.”

He included a hands together in prayer emoji before adding: “But the LGBT community ... I ain’t trippin on y’all, do you. y’all business is y’all business.”

The emoji denotes thanks and gratitude.

His words at the concert prompted a social media backlash, with claims the 29-year-old rapper was homophobic and a misogynist, The Grio news and entertainment website reported.

“Im a fan of this guys rapping, but the ignorance in this video is mind boggling,” Twitter user M.D. Ricks posted.

In reaction to DaBaby’s Instagram Story that repeated the crude description of the sexual act in reference to gay people, another fan tweeted: “My dude is always making it worse for himself.”

Tweeted a woman with the Twitter handle MrsCoWright2014: “Oof…where is his PR?”

Grammy nominee

DaBaby was nominated in November for four 2021 Grammy Awards and for one award the previous year, but he has yet to win a Grammy.

He has also had troubles with the law.

▪ In a February lawsuit, DaBaby and some of his associates were accused of beating and robbing a vacation rental home owner near Hollywood Hills, Calif., and breaking COVID-19 crowding rules to boot in December, the Observer previously reported.

▪ In January, the rapper was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and carrying a loaded firearm in a vehicle, Acting Captain Max Subin of the Beverly Hills (Calif.) Police Department told The Charlotte Observer at the time. A security guard at a Gucci store on Rodeo Drive called 911 about a man who had a gun in his waistband in the store, Subin said in an email.

▪ In November 2019, he was arrested on a weapons charge in connection to a fatal shooting in a North Carolina Walmart. In June 2020, a Mecklenburg County District Court judge found him guilty of the misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, a DA’s office spokeswoman told the Observer at the time. He was sentenced to a year of unsupervised probation.

The charge came in connection with the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Jalyn Domonique Craig of Charlotte during a fight in the Walmart on Bryton Town Center Drive in Huntersville on Nov. 5, 2018.