Love is in the air for Lil Nas X! The openly gay rapper is on the latest cover of Variety‘s Power of Young Hollywood issue, and in the interview opened up about coming out, his career so far, and even revealed he has “found someone special.”
Lil Nas X is having a major 2021 from his headline-making music video for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” to his SNL debut and BET Awards performance, the rapper is one of the biggest names in music currently. In Variety‘s Power of Young Hollywood issue, he is described as “an outspoken and empowered gay man unafraid to express truth in his art.”
The young artist spoke to how the alone time of the pandemic affected him, and how it ultimately shifted his career trajectory, helping him get out of his head.
He revealed to Variety, “Honestly, I believe the pandemic helped me get out of the idea of trying to please everybody, and the idea of ‘He’s a cool gay person; he’s an acceptable gay person. I used to see things like that as a compliment, but it’s not. It just means you’re a people pleaser, and they never become legends. I wanted to be even more authentic in my music and let people into my life. I’m much more confident now — in my music, myself, my sexuality, the things that I believe that I stand for.”
In a rare comment, Nas X also opened up about his love life in the past, and who is in his life right now. “I was 18, I believe,” Nas revealed when discussing his first boyfriend. “Before that, there was a guy who wasn’t my boyfriend, but we met in middle school and we talked, after we both found out that each other were gay. But I didn’t act on anything until high school — well, middle school, but then high school.”
“Once I was 17 or 18, I finally accepted it — like, for sure accepted it, slowly, more and more — and now I’ve grown into a person that is 100% open with it. I’ve had some good boyfriends and some bad ones,” he continued. “A lot of them were emotionally unavailable or had a lot of insecurity and what not…I’ve found someone special now. I think this is the one. I can’t explain it — it’s just a feeling.”
In the wake of DaBaby‘s homophobic rant at Rolling Loud, much has been made of homophobia in Hip-Hop, which only enforces the importance of Lil Nas X’s art. Still, Nas X did reveal in the interview he has had to beef up his security and did not make any direct comments on DaBaby’s controversy.
“The honest truth is, I don’t want to speak on a lot of the homophobia within rap because I feel like this is a very dangerous playing field,” he said. “It’s more for my own safety rather than anything else.”
Read the full Lil Nas X story for Variety, here.
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