DaBaby apologizes for HIV/AIDS comments but says he ‘ain’t trippin’ on LGBT community despite widespread criticism

• DaBaby has apologized for his comments about HIV/AIDS during a live performance at Rolling Loud.
• The rapper originally stood by his comments, calling critics, "bitter b—-es."
• However, DaBaby did not apologize for his homophobic remarks.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

DaBaby has apologized for the comments he made about HIV/AIDS during his set at the Rolling Loud festival in Miami over the weekend.

The rapper, whose real name is Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, faced backlash from fans and celebrities like Dua Lipa and Jonathan Van Ness after a video was shared online of the rapper making disparaging comments about HIV/AIDS-positive people and gay men during his live performance.

At one point he was heard saying: "If you didn't show up today with HIV, AIDS, or any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that'll make you die in two to three weeks, then put your cell phone lighter up… Fellas, if you ain't sucking d— in the parking lot, put your cell phone lighter up."

DaBaby posted a tweet Tuesday apologizing for offending those with HIV/AIDS.

He wrote: "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."

-DaBaby (@DaBabyDaBaby) July 27, 2021

Thanks to advancements in medicine, HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence as DaBaby suggested. Today, HIV-positive people who take their antiretroviral therapy (ART) as prescribed can live well into their 80s. The medication also suppresses a person's viral load to undetectable levels, at which point it's effectively impossible to pass the virus on to someone else.

DaBaby, however, did not apologize for his comments about gay people saying in the tweet: "But the LGBT community... I ain't trippin on y'all, do you. y'all business is y'all business."

The rapper initially stood by his comments in a now-deleted video on his Instagram Story on Tuesday calling online critics of his set "bitter b----es."

"What me and my fans do at the live show, it don't concern you n----s on the internet or you bitter b----es on the internet," the 29-year-old rapper said. "It's not your business, what I do at a live show is for the audience at the live show, it'll never translate correctly to somebody looking at a little five-second clip from their goddamn crib on their phone."

He added: "I wasn't going on a rant, that's called a call to action, that's what that's called, cause I'm a live performer, I'm the best live performer... Y'all bringing negative attention and energy upon yourselves and the ones that's doing it is ones who didn't even attend the show, so this s--- don't concern y'all at all."

A previous collaborator of DaBaby, Dua Lipa, has spoken out against the rapper, saying she was "surprised and horrified" by DaBaby's comments.

Lipa, who had featured DaBaby on a remix of her hit song "Levitating" wrote on her Instagram story: "I really don't recognize this as the person I worked with.

"I know my fans know where my heart lies and that I stand 100% with the LGTBQ community. We need to come together to fight the stigma and ignorance around HIV/AIDS."

The only celebrity so far to come out in defense of DaBaby is fellow rapper T.I. who compared the controversial rapper to rising star Lil Nas X. T.I. commented on Instagram: "If Lil Nas X can kick his s--- in peace... so should DaBaby."

A post shared by The Shade Room (@theshaderoom)

Lil Nas X, who is gay, has not commented on the situation but his father Robert Stafford wrote on his Instagram Story, "Bruh sit down, you had your time" over a picture of the two musicians.