Lil Nas X celebrated his 24th birthday last Sunday, April 9, by posting a Playboy-inspired photo featuring him as “Batty Boy,” a Jamaican Patois slur weaponized against gay men. Even someone as confident and empowered as Lil Nas X has to repeatedly defend his sexuality against homophobic trolls. He’s keenly aware of the uphill battle his community faces.
It’s unsurprising, then, that he took a tweet about “Sun Goes Down” hitting No. 1 on the iTunes chart in Saudi Arabia as an opportunity to tweet a supportive message to his LGBTQ+ fans in the country, where queer people are criminalized (as summarized by Human Dignity Trust).
“to my gays [sic] fans from saudi arabia reading this, i hope this song is getting you through whatever you’re going through and i hope someday soon the laws against us change and you can be free in your own home,” Lil Nas X wrote.
to my gays fans from saudi arabia reading this, i hope this song is getting you through whatever you’re going through and i hope someday soon the laws against us change and you can be free in your own home. https://t.co/Cn7j2FMdM3
— pussy (@LilNasX) April 13, 2023
Lil Nas X also retweeted this:
A song about repressing you’re sexuality out of fears of being attacked and ridiculed for it goes #1 in a country where it’s illegal to be gay…what a world we live in
https://t.co/dP3gBJ7cWo
— Really Fxcking Tired Viking
(@HeathenVikingr) April 12, 2023
“Sun Goes Down” is housed on Montero, Lil Nas X’s debut studio album from September 2021. The track chronicles suicidal ideation (“I don’t want a life / Send me a gun, and I’ll see the sun”) and a struggle to accept himself (“These gay thoughts would always haunt me / I prayed God would take it from me”). The first verse ends with Lil Nas X appreciative of the self-love he has now and recognizing that not everybody gets there: “I’m happy that it all worked out for me / I’ma make my fans so proud of me.”
The “Sun Goes Down” video from May 2021 encouraged viewers to donate to the non-profit What’s In The Mirror and promised Gilead COMPASS Initiative would match donations up to $25,000.
Watch it below.