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While there was plenty to celebrate at the 2024 Olympic Opening Ceremony, Christians took issue with one particular section of the extravaganza.
In one moment of the hours-long parade, famed DJ Barbara Butch performed alongside a large group of drag queens (including Nicky Doll, the host of Drag Race France) and created a tableau in which all of them appeared to be seated behind a large, long table. Some viewers quickly drew comparisons between the tableau and Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic painting The Last Supper, which then drew ire from conservative Christians who called the performance disrespectful and even “blasphemous.”
One group who denounced the performance was the French Catholic Church’s conference of bishops, who described the moment as “scenes of derision and mockery of Christianity” and said that “our thoughts are with all the Christians from all continents who were hurt by the outrage and provocation of certain scenes.”
As the criticism was occurring online, the official X account for the Olympic Games shared some further photos from the performance for context, showing that the scene was meant to depict the feast of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and revelry. “The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings,” the statement read.
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In an interview with the Associated Press, the show’s artistic director Thomas Jolly defended the tableau, saying that he wanted the performance to represent the “the right to love each other, as we want and with who we want.” “My wish isn’t to be subversive, nor to mock or to shock. Most of all, I wanted to send a message of love, a message of inclusion and not at all to divide.”
Olympics spokesperson Anne Descamps answered a question during a Sunday press conference about the backlash to the performance, saying that neither the International Olympic Committee (IOC) nor Jolly had any “intention to show disrespect to any religious group.” Instead, she added, “We really did try to celebrate community tolerance. Looking at the result of the polls that we shared, we believe that this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offense we are, of course, really, really sorry.”
See the Olympic Games’ tweet regarding the controversial performance below:
In need of some new tunes from your favorite queer artists? We’re here to help. Billboard Pride is proud to present the latest edition of Queer Jams of the Week, our roundup of some of the best new music releases from LGBTQ artists.
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From Halsey’s heartbreaking new single to Mxmtoon’s country-tinged new track, check out just a few of our favorite releases from this week below:
Halsey, “Lucky”
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Britney Spears’ beloved track “Lucky” has always been a song about the pitfalls of public approval — now, Halsey’s simply giving it an update. With her new track of the same name, the 29-year-old singer interpolates Spears’ hit into a softer, acoustic context to drive home the message of life under a modern microscope. Halsey dives deep into endless internet speculation about her life, from the dissolution of her relationship to her health struggles, before dropping her own twist on Spears’ words like a hammer: “But I’m so lucky, I’m a star/ But I cry, cry, cry in my lonely heart.”
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Mxmtoon, “I Hate Texas”
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Sometimes you get your heart broken so bad that you literally have to change genres. That’s the quandry Mxmtoon is living through on “I Hate Texas,” her country-adjacent new single that sees the singer moving away from her ex in order to find some well-earned peace. Over twinkling, acoustic guitars, the singer declares that she may not like her current circumstances, but she’ll take it over another day sweating over her former flame.
Katie Gavin, “Aftertaste”
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Fans of MUNA have known for years about lead singer Katie Gavin’s vocal prowess — but now, the singer is taking on her own spotlight as a solo act. With “Aftertaste,” Gavin’s debut solo single, the singer re-introduces herself with little in the way of fanfare. The track includes a few backing harmonies and some gentle acoustic guitars to bolster the true star, Gavin’s stunning voice and incredible lyricism. Telling the story of a meeting with a past lover and letting those repressed feelings take control, “Aftertaste” is just an appetizer for what promises to be an excellent solo project from the MUNA star.
Sophie feat. Popstar, “One More Time”
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Building on the fast acclaim of “Reason Why,” Sophie is back with another pair of posthumous singles. While “Berlin Nightmare” bears a lot of the signature, game-changing production that fans have come to associate with the iconic super-producer’s sound, it’s “One More Time” featuring Popstar that feels like something fresh. Undulating synths and glitching beats create a mechanical fantasy throughout this stunning, not-quite-ambient track, making for a song that feels as entrancing as it does unnerving — a winning combination for the late, great Sophie.
Orla Gartland, “The Hit”
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Empathy, we can all agree, is great. But rising Irish singer-songwriter Orla Gartland would like to point out that sometimes, empathy can self-destructive. “The Hit” tracks Gartland’s own struggle with being perhaps too empathetic, as she relates so hard to her significant other that it becomes unsustainable. Arpeggiating guitar riffs and off-kilter drums create a feeling of discombobulation to match the singer’s own psychic troubles, making “The Hit” as powerful a punch as you could hope for from this soon-to-be-star.
Check out all of our picks on Billboard’s Queer Jams of the Week playlist below:
Fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree — and Vice President Kamala Harris wants to remind them of the context they exist in. Ahead of Friday’s (July 26) finale episode of All Stars 9, Drag Race shared an official clip set to air in the first moments of the […]
After making a series of homophobic remarks throughout her career, gospel singer Kim Burrell made an official apology over the weekend.
While accepting the Aretha Franklin Icon Award at the 39th annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards, Burrell offered an apology to the LGBTQ community for the “hurtful” comments she’s made over the years.
“I have, over the course of time and with much soul-searching, come to fully understand the reach and impact of my voice beyond Gospel music,” the singer explained. “There is such a care to take when you realize you’re not just preaching to the choir anymore. You’re preaching to the ones who wanted to be in the choir and were too scared to come because they didn’t understand our language. … [I] understand that some of my past words, comments, preaching have been received by the LGBTQ+ community as negative and hurtful. There’s nothing more hurtful than to think — to imagine — that you’ve said something in the name of God, and it hurt somebody.”
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The singer continued, claiming that her use of “church lingo” may have contributed to her ignorant comments. “We have a church jargon that everybody doesn’t get. And sometimes you have to say it for the people in the back. And for that, I want to apologize to the LGBTQ community. Let’s give them a great big round of applause,” she said to the audience. “We want them to have strength and to sincerely know that we must all do the work to embrace all of God’s people. Tonight, I hope this award and this moment can be the beginning of bridge-building and listening to each other as we follow peace with all men and develop the character of God, which requires seeing God.”
In a now-infamous sermon in 2017, Burrell called LGBTQ+ people “perverted” and told those living with a “homosexual spirit” that “I love you and God loves you but God hates the sin in you and me.” As a result of Burrell’s sermon, Ellen DeGeneres canceled the singer’s appearance on her talk show, saying at the time, “There’s no room for any kind of prejudice in 2017.”
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In response, Darian Aaron, the director of local news: U.S. South for LGBTQ+ advocacy organization GLAAD, published a statement calling Burrell’s apology merely “a first step” toward “accountability and healing” for the community.
“Black LGBTQ people who remain in traditional faith communities are very familiar with the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric Burrell and others have espoused throughout her career,” he wrote. “We are well-versed in the ‘lingo and jargon’ of Black church culture and a gospel music industry that benefits from our gifts but demands us to be silent about our truth. … Burrell’s speech is evidence of a tipping point where Burrell, the Black church, and the gospel music industry can recognize and accept us all as people of faith and as worthy of Black liberation as anyone else.”
Watch a clip of Burrell’s apology below, and read the entirety of GLAAD’s response on their website.
Brittany Aldean is speaking out about her feud with Maren Morris, whose feminism the influencer called “bulls–t” on a new episode of Try That In a Small Town posted Monday (July 22).
On the podcast, which is hosted by the cowriters of Jason Aldean‘s controversial song of the same name, Brittany reflected on butting heads with the “The Middle” singer-songwriter in 2022 over gender-affirming healthcare discourse. To recap, the former NBA dancer thanked her parents for allowing her to go through her “tomboy” phase without “changing [her] gender” in a post on Instagram, after which she proceeded to double down on her stance and spread misinformation about what she called “the genital mutilation of children.” Meanwhile, Morris tweeted in response to her claims, saying, “It’s so easy to, like, not be a scumbag human? Sell your clip-ins and zip it, Insurrection Barbie.”
“She’s got a group of friends here in Nashville that, they just have it out for me for whatever reason,” Brittany said on the pod, while seated next to her country star husband. “Which, to be so pro-woman and all the bulls–t … you’re not, because I’ve never said a word to you and you come for me. Why? Because I’m an easy target? Because I’m a wife, and I don’t have a stage as a platform, but I have social media? For some reason I offend them.”
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“She started to make fun of my business, which at the time was hair extensions,” she continued of Morris. “But to me it’s, like, once again, going back to the feminist movement. Aren’t you supposed to be all peace, love and all inclusivity and all the things? Why are you coming for me like that about my business?”
Brittany went on to triple down on her post that started it all. “I’m thankful that my parents didn’t say, ‘Oh, Brit. You love sports, you love Babe Ruth, do you want to be a boy?’ That’s crazy!”
But while the Aldeans and the podcast’s hosts — Kurt Allison, Tully Kennedy, Kelley Lovelace and Neil Thrasher — all agreed that parents surgically changing the sex of their underage kids is “so common these days,” experts maintain that it’s exceedingly rare. Most kids who receive gender-affirming care are treated with impermanent courses of action such as speech therapy, puberty blockers or hormone treatments.
“Young people don’t do too much that is irreversible. Prior to puberty, there is no medical intervention,” Dr. Joshua D. Safer, MD, executive director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, previously Billboard. “Even puberty blockers are reversible. In later teenage years, well-established patients may begin hormone treatment.”
In spite of her beliefs, Brittany said she still takes issue with “headlines” labeling her “transphobic,” but one thing she doesn’t have a problem with anymore is Morris’ nickname for her. “They called me Insurrection Barbie,” she said on the podcast, laughing as Jason chimed in, “It’s kind of hot.”
07/23/2024
On a scale of one to Roxxxy Andrews.
07/23/2024
With the U.S. presidential election coming up in November, Vice President Kamala Harris is making sure that voters hit the polls like rom-pom-pom-pom. In one of the Harris campaign’s latest TikTok videos, the vice president pitched herself as the best alternative to former president Donald Trump with a little help from rising pop star Chappell […]
Pop star Sam Smith has seen plenty of highs and lows in their career, but in a new interview, they detailed a personal low that left them immobilized. On the latest episode of the Sidetracked With Annie and Nick podcast, Smith revealed that in January, they were in a horrific skiing accident and tore their anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).
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“I completely ripped my ACL. I was skiing,” they said in the interview. “I was an idiot and went on a black slope on the second day … I got taken down in a blood bag. It was the worst.”
They explained that while they have since recovered, some of the effects are a “permanent thing” due to the nature of the injury. “It’s in between your bones and helps you jump and spring around, and it completely ripped,” they said. “I decided to go down the non-surgical route, but I couldn’t walk for a month on this leg and it was awful, it was the first time I’d ever not been able to move.”
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But, as Smith puts it, the injury served as a call to action, allowing them to “get my s–t together” as they recovered. “I was very anxious and had been struggling with anxiety for years,” they said. “So, I started icing every morning, I started getting into my circadian rhythm. And a big part of that is light exposure to your eyes … in the evening, you stay off your phone and basically try to live by candlelight for last hour before you sleep.”
Smith’s revelation comes after a momentous year for the pop singer. In 2024, Smith celebrated the 10th anniversary of their debut album, In the Lonely Hour. In a note posted to commemorate the seminal project’s first decade, Smith thanked their fans for their support and revealed that they’d re-recorded “Stay With Me” to feature more gender-neutral identifications. “[I included] the updated lyric ‘but I still need love, baby understand,’ which felt really important to me,” they said. “It’s beautiful to know that sometimes, we can change the past.
Listen to Smith’s full interview below:
From one pink pony girl to another, drag icon Sasha Colby is sharing the love with breakout pop “Femininomenon” Chappell Roan.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 reacted to the pop star’s interpretation of her now-iconic catchphrase, calling herself “your favorite artist’s favorite artist.”
“The night of the finale for season 16, when I gave up the crown, was also the night of the finale for my Stripped [tour], and that’s when Chappell said it at Coachella,” she said in the interview. “To see Jimmy Fallon say my name is kind of wild. I just talked to Chappell, we just talked for a little bit. We were very meet-and-greet-y, like, ‘I love you, I think you’re amazing.’”
Colby originally referred to herself as “your favorite drag queen’s favorite drag queen” during her “Meet the Queens” interview for season 15 of Drag Race. Roan later presented herself using the phrase during her Coachella set in April, with many of her fans spreading the clip of her introduction online.
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During her recent appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Roan made sure to give proper credit where it was due. “That was a reference to Sasha Colby, and Sasha Colby said, ‘I’m your favorite drag queen’s favorite drag queen,’” she told the host. “It just hit me through the heart. And so I hope one day Sasha Colby watches me, and that’s why I said it.”
Colby added that she appreciated seeing a major pop star directly credit her for her contribution, and said she hoped more pop stars would take notes. “Drag has always been a mirror of pop culture,” she said. “Since Drag Race, we are pop, the tastemakers, and pop girlies look to us for inspiration — much like Chappell Roan! All I can say is, goddess sees goddess, you know? Greatness sees greatness! Your favorite artist’s favorite artist, baby!”
Chappell Roan‘s epic run will continue its upward trajectory this fall after the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer announced some additional dates on her Midwest Princess Tour on Tuesday (July 16). The new fall shows will include appearances at the All Things Go festival in Forest Hills, N.Y. on Sept. 28 as well as All Things […]