Featuring on
the Drink Champs podcast, the Grammy-nominated
star reflected on the backlash he received in 2017 for performing at a
Washington DC LGBTQ+ Pride celebration.
“In terms of
the Black community, you know, there’s a stigma,” he said
on the podcast. “There’s a hate that goes along with being gay. And
oftentimes in our language to even degrade a person, we use gay as the
adjective. So that carries on into entertainment.”
He expressed
disappointment for what he described as a “continued disdain” for the LGBTQ+
community within the Black community. He later professed that this doesn’t
influence who he performs for.
“My friend
said, ‘What do you think about performing at a gay Pride parade in DC? I said,
‘Well s**t, what kind of band [do] they have?’ He said, ‘They’ve got this kind
of band’, and I said, ‘I’m on the way,'” Tank explained.
The homophobic
abuse continued, however, with several comments on the podcast clip suggesting
that Tank’s support of the gay community is actually because he’s secretly
queer himself.
He hit back at
those comments in a later
post, saying: “As you can see by these comments, the hate will never stop.
“The divide
will continue as long as people lack love and understanding. You calling me gay
or making up s**t to support your gay claims about me won’t make me gay… lol.”
In fact, Tank
has been in an on-and-off relationship with his longtime spouse Zena Foster
since the early 2000s. The two married on July 22 2018 and have two children
together.
He’s best
known for the song When We, which has just under 77 million
listens on Spotify and more than 118 million views on YouTube. He was nominated
for a Grammy four times – twice in 2008, once in 2011, and again in 2014.
SOURCE: PINK NEWS
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