Dua Lipa - HIV/AIDS

Dua Lipa © Cover Images

Dua Lipa ‘horrified’ by DaBaby’s controversial HIV comments

Award-winning singer Dua Lipa is ‘surprised and horrified’ by DaBaby’s recent on-stage comments about HIV/Aids.

Dua Lipa - HIV/AIDS

Dua Lipa © Cover Images

Over the weekend, rapper DaBaby — a guest artist on Dua Lipa’s hit Levitating — told Miami, Florida’s Rolling Loud Festival that HIV/Aids would “make you die in two or three weeks”, despite many people being able to live long lives with HIV thanks to medicine that has been around since the 1990s.

Unsavoury comment sparks outrage online

His comments sparked outrage online and New Rules singer Dua took to her Instagram Stories on Tuesday to react to her collaborator’s remarks.

“I’m surprised and horrified at DaBaby’s comments,” Dua wrote.

“I really don’t recognise this as the person I worked with. I know my fans know where my heart lies and that I stand 100% with the LGBTQ community. We need to come together to fight the stigma and ignorance around HIV/AIDS.”

DaBaby later apologises for HIV/AIDS comments on Twitter

Representatives for online fashion retailer Boohoo – who have a clothing collaboration with the 29-year-old rapper – condemned his homophobic language in a statement to BBC’s Newsbeat, adding: “We pride ourselves on representing the diverse customers we serve across the globe.”

DaBaby originally defended his comments in a series of Instagram Stories videos, in which he stated that his live performance will “never translate” to people watching an out of context clip online.

However, on Tuesday night, he issued an apology on Twitter.

“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 wrote. “But the LGBT community… I ain’t trippin on y’all, do you. y’all business is y’all business (sic).”

© Cover Media