Plus, like all other minorities, I live in an awful world dominated by straight white men-I have bigger problems to deal with than a one-hit wonder's Twitter account. Kelly's 'Bump n' Grind' even though he married a teenage Aaliyah and allegedly did all manner of horrible things, I can listen to Broke with Expensive Taste despite Banks's Twitter account. Most notoriously, she called gossip blogger Perez Hilton-the gay man who introduced Katy Perry and Lady Gaga to America-'a messy faggot.' Instead of apologizing like most people would do in the age of Twitter and social justice Tumblrs, Banks defended her right to use hate speech: 'Why has society accepted 'nigger' as a colloquialism… But will not accept 'faggot'?' she said in a (now deleted) tweet.Īs a gay man and professional writer, I have mostly ignored her comments because her songs occupy the middle ground between my love for loud, angry music, like the Smashing Pumpkins', and campy pop stars like Paris Hilton.

In the last few years, Banks has become better known for her homophobic Twitter beefs than her music.