RuPaul’s Drag Race season 9 runner-up Peppermint, who is also openly transgender, has responded to the recent controversy surrounding rapper Offset’s homophobic lyric and Cardi B’s subsequent defense of him.
Speaking with Billboard during the Grammys pre-show, which streamed on Twitter on Sunday (Jan. 28), Peppermint weighed in on the conversation over Offest’s verse on YFN Lucci’s song “Boss Life.”
In the song, Offset raps, “I cannot vibe with queers.” He quickly issued an apology and said that he did not intend to use the word “queer” as a homophobic slur, and his fiancée Cardi B later took to Periscope to defend him.
“I’m not going to let somebody call him ‘homophobic’ when I know that he’s not,” the “Bodak Yellow” rapper said. “And I’m saying this because I seen him around these… around gays, and he treats them with the same respect he treats everybody. He never acts uncomfortable and he just don’t care.”
She added that Offset was unaware that the word “queer” was offensive, and asked, “Why don’t y’all educate people about it? A lot of people are not aware about what’s wrong or right in the LGBT community. Why don’t we do things to educate instead of bashing and trying to label something that they not?”
Responding to Cardi B’s statement, Peppermint says, “I think everybody deserves a second chance. It definitely was not the most tasteful way to speak about LGBT people, even if he was unaware.”
She adds that the key to this argument is Cardi B’s message that “we all need more education, and that’s definitely true. And so Cardi, if you want more of the ABCs on LGBT, I will help you out!”
You can watch the full video clip of Peppermint discussing Cardi B and Offset above.
