Pete Buttigieg asked for Lil Nas X’s endorsement but did not receive it, according to the rapper, who added that he did not want to endorse a candidate simply because he is also gay.
“I’m not too into politics,” Lil Nas X, the 20-year-old behind 2019’s record-breaking hit “Old Town Road,” said in an interview with the Guardian published Saturday.
The 38-year-old former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and Democratic presidential dropout could have been the first openly gay presidential nominee, contributing to increased attention and notoriety throughout his campaign.
“I don’t know his political history or motives. The only thing I know,” Lil Nas X said, “Wasn’t he from the Democratic Party?”
When informed that Buttigieg was indeed a Democrat, he continued, “See. All I know is he’s from the Democratic party and he’s gay. So it’s like … I don’t want to base my support off, ‘Oh, you’re gay, I’m going to support you.’”
“Yeah, you’re gay. But I don’t know everything you’re planning when you’re running the entire country,” Lil Nas X said. “That was the reason I said no.”
Lil Nas X reportedly refused to collaborate with Buttigieg at a BuzzFeed-hosted event last summer. Event organizers wanted Buttigieg to sing some of Old Town Road, but Lil Nas X did not want to appear to be endorsing a candidate. Buttigieg did not attend the event.
In September, Buttigieg chimed in on an exchange between comedian Kevin Hart and Lil Nas X when Hart bushed off Lil Nas X’s decision to come out as gay. “He said he was gay. So what?” Hart said.
“I think when somebody finds it necessary to wave their arms up and down and jump up and down telling you how much this isn’t a thing for them it makes you wonder whether they’re being honest with themselves,” Buttigieg said. “I know a lot of gay people hear that and hear something that might not be that different than what some folks hear when they hear somebody say, ‘I don’t see color.'”
Lil Nas X added in the interview that he did not plan to come out as gay before becoming a Grammy-winning superstar.
“The honest truth is, I planned to die with the secret,” he said. “But that changed when I became Lil Nas X.”
