Jack Harlow shows support for Lil Nas X at BET Awards amid new discrimination claims

Last night at the BET Awards, hip hop star and “First Class” chart-topper Jack Harlow stood up for his friend and “Industry Baby” collaborator Lil Nas X in a big way.

Jack, who was nominated for Best Male Hip Hop Artist alongside Drake, Future, J. Cole, ‘Ye, Kendrick Lamar and Lil Baby, took to the red carpet wearing a big black LNX tee that features the “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” singer’s face and torso among fluttering butterflies. 

The “That’s What I Want” rapper immediately took to Twitter to gush about how much he loves his friend and colleague.

This show of support comes almost two months after Jack gave a revealing interview with The Guardian, where he decried and denounced the level of queerphobia leveled at LNX simply for being an out and proud Black man. 

“The totally inappropriate reaction to him lets you know that we still have some progress to be made,” Jack told the outlet. “And you hear it in passing; there’s still some homophobia going on. But he’s taking the hit that artists won’t have to take in the future. That’s what makes him a hero.”

His support couldn’t come at a better time, as LNX has been vocally engaged in a war of words with the BET Awards over his nominations snubs, despite being one of the biggest performing acts in rap and hip hop today. 

Earlier this month, when the BET nominations were announced, and LNX (real name Montero Lamar Hill) was not on the list, he released a diss track on Twitter called "f*** BET," which included the lyrics, ““F*** BET, f***  BET/ F*** BET, f***BET/ Lick it on up, slurp it/ Make it sloppy, ok, ok, ok, ok/ Look at how I top sh**/ I just put like three up in the top 10/ And I don’t need nobody/ I just need these ccs on my body/ Everything I do be tryna run, go make a profit/ Read about it.”

This came on the heels of him attrubiting his lack of nominations to anti-Black anti-queer dscimination within the community. He posted a series of now-deleted tweets that read, “Thank you BET awards. an outstanding zero nominations again. Black excellence!” 

He went on to say, “I just feel like black gay ppl have to fight to be seen in this world and even when we make it to the top mfs try to pretend we are invisible.”

Last night, before the BET Awards began, LNX decided to add further context to his accusations, clarifying the rumor that he was simply mad about nominations, rather than there being greater forces at work behind his snub.

The rapper and his team shared a statement to Rolling Stone, claiming that the awards ceremony asked for confirmation that he was not a “satanist or devil worshiper” due to the imagery in his “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” music video and his short-lived Nike shoes.

“My relationship with BET has been painful and strained for quite some time. It didn’t start with this year’s nominations like most people might think,” Lil Nas X told the outlet. “They did let me perform on their show last year, but only after [I gave] assurances that I was not a satanist or devil worshiper, and that my performance would be appropriate for their audience.”

An anonymous member of LNX’s team also told the outlet, “The response we got [from BET] was, ‘We need to clarify a few things. Is he a Satanist? Are there going to be elements of devil worship or satan in the show?’ I was so taken aback by it.”

“When Nas created ‘Montero,’ he knew what he was doing. He wanted to create a queer-pop anthem. He wanted to make a statement based on what he’s heard from people probably his whole life as a gay man,” the source continued. “That statement was very clear to me. But they’ve all missed the message so much that all they see is the devil.”

The statements also allege that after LNX’s last performance at the BET Awards, where he kissed his backup dancer, backstage the award organizers displayed blatant queerphobia by telling him his performance was “f***ed up.”

A second anonymous member of LNX’s team told the outlet, “At some point after [Nas] got offstage, one of the BET producers came up to me and before I could even open my mouth, he looked at me and said, ‘That was really f***ed up.’”

“They say that ‘no one cheered louder’ for me than them that night,” Lil Nas X continued the story, “but the BET Awards team was actually very upset that I kissed my dancer onstage and vocalized their discontent with multiple members of my team immediately following the performance.”

A rep for the awards has denied these claims, saying the “summation of events around Lil Nas X’s 2021 BET Awards performance is simply untrue.” 

“Since last year’s performance, we have been in touch to work on other projects,” the BET spokesperson added. “We are still excited about his previous performances and continue to wish him well. But today, we are focused on culture’s biggest night and delivering history-making moments for fans worldwide.”