Lil Nas X never planned to come out.
In June last year, “Old Town Road” hitmaker Lil Nas X let the world in on a very intimate space as he revealed he was gay. But the announcement that happened in June of last year, which is also Pride Month, was in no way planned. As the 30 days grew to a close, Lil Nas suggested his fans take a close listen to his track “C7osure”. The lyrics include the lines, “Ain’t no more actin’ / This is what I gotta do, can’t be regretting when I’m old.” The rapper claimed he thought he meaning behind the song was obvious, but when it evidently wasn’t, he followed it up with a tweet that featured a rainbow image as a means to confirm his coming out.
The move recognized the Grammy Award winner as one of the first openly gay male rappers, and Lil Nas recently told The Guardian that he never actually intended to be so.
“The honest truth is, I planned to die with the secret,” he told the publication. “But that changed when I became Lil Nas X. I 100 percent want to represent the LGBT community. I don’t want to encourage them to do something they don’t 100 percent want to do. Especially in, like, middle school or high school. Because it’s just super-hard.”
Sadly, the 20-year-old’s situation with his family is not unfamiliar. Homosexuality is still a point of contention in the African-American community and Lil Nas highlighted how his family still struggles with his sexual orientation. “My family knows now,” he said. “But it’s not something that’s ever brought up or we speak about. We’re quiet on it. Nobody’s like, ‘Oh, you got a boyfriend?’ I don’t want [my love life] to be something we never talk about. Because what about the kids in my family?”
Despite his own trials, Lil Nas’s coming out has served as a fantastic example of living your truth.
