Troye Sivan says there’s never really a reason to use homophobic slurs in music
The Australian singer said Eminem could be forgiven for his homophobic comments
By Steve Brown
Troye Sivan doesn’t think there’s “ever really a reason” for homophobic slurs in music.
Rapper Eminem caused controversy after dropping his tenth studio album on August 31 and in the title track, he brands the 27-year-old rapper Tyler, The Creator – who has made allusions to experience same-sex attraction in the past – a “f****t bitch”.
The lyric, which is censored on the recording, is: “Tyler create nothing, I see why you called yourself a f****t bitch / It’s not just ’cause you lack attention / It’s cause you worship D12’s balls, you’re sacrilegious / If you’re gonna critique me, you better at least be as good or better”.
But Troye, who publicly came out in a YouTube video back in 2013, said it’s possible for Eminem to be forgiven.
He told Variety: “I don’t think there’s ever really a reason. I just feel like some words are not meant for everyone, or for anyone.
“It’s not that hard to respect that, so I just hope that people do.
“I would like to believe that people can grow and change. I think that repeated behaviour is something that should be taken really seriously.
“I would love to believe that if the person showed enough genuine remorse and understanding of how they’ve hurt people and actively made strides to correct that – I would like to believe I can be fine with that person.”
Now, in a new interview with rapper Sway, Eminem claimed he may have gone “too far” with the lyrics, saying: “I think the word that I called him on that song was one of the things where I felt like, ‘This might be too far’.
“Because in my quest to hurt him, I realise that I was hurting a lot of other people by saying it. It was one of the things that I kept going back to and going, ‘I don’t feel right with this’.”