Snoop Dogg has responded to the backlash generated over his comments about a same-sex scene in the Disney film Lightyear.
During a recent appearance on the It’s Giving podcast, the rapper said seeing a same-sex couple in the 2022 film left him “scared to go to the movies” because he did not want to answer his grandson’s questions on homosexual relationships. The comments generated backlash against both the rapper and the podcast over how the episode was edited.
The rapper addressed the backlash in the comments section of a Hollywood Unlocked Instagram post, writing: “I was just caught off guard and had no answer for my grandsons.
“All my gay friends [know] what’s up they been calling me with love,” he continued. “My bad for not knowing the answers for a 6 yr old … teach me how to learn I’m not perfect.”
Voiced by Captain America star Chris Evans, the Toy Storyspinoff follows marooned space ranger Buzz Lightyear as he tries to make his way back home. In the film, a montage shows Buzz’s best friend Alisha Hawthorne, voiced by Uzo Aduba, meeting, falling in love with, marrying, and then raising a child with a crew member named Kiko. One of the scenes shows the couple at their son’s graduation, where they share a brief kiss.
On the podcast, which appears to have edited the episode to remove the section from the main upload, Snoop Dogg mentioned his grandson had a series of questions about queer couples that the rapper didn’t “have an answer for.”
“They’re like, ‘She had a baby, with another woman.’ Well, my grandson, in the middle of the movie is like, ‘Papa Snoop? How she have a baby with a woman? She’s a woman!’” he said.
“‘Oh s***, I didn’t come in for this s***. I just came to watch the godd*** movie,’” the rapper continued. “‘They just said, she and she had a baby, they’re both women. How does she have a baby?’”
“It f***ed me up,” Snoop said. “I’m like, scared to go to the movies. Y’all throwing me in the middle of s*** that I don’t have an answer for. It threw me for a loop. I’m like, ‘What part of the movie was this?’ These are kids. We have to show that at this age? They’re going to ask questions. I don’t have the answer.”
In the main episode of the podcast, at around the 31-minute mark, host Sarah Fontenot asks Snoop Dogg what he thinks of her opinion on what she called the “single mother epidemic,” where single mothers are “raising women in their sons.”
Snoop responds: “See, that goes back to the presentation I spoke to you [about] earlier. What you see, it’s what you see. They’re putting it everywhere.”
Immediately after, the video cuts to Fontenot talking about a completely different subject.
However, the podcast has since released the clip of Snoop talking about Lightyear in a different upload and claimed in a comment on YouTube that the video was “mistakenly edited.”
Multiple comments on the YouTube video have called out the podcast for editing the main episode, and it appears to have been added later as a response to the viewers’ comments, based on the time stamps. Listeners, including Boy George, also criticized Snoop for his comments.
“So sad to read this from Snoop Dogg. Because you can’t turn kids gay by helping them understand that some people are different,” the English singer-songwriter wrote on X in a post that appears to have since been deleted. “You are born gay, just like you are born black or anything else. Kids are a reflection of those who raise them. Come on Snoop, be the legend you are or get some stronger weed! Always your fan. Boy Gay-geous!”
The Independent has reached out to representatives for Snoop Doggand the It’s Giving podcast for comment.