Any man that tries Touching my behind He’s gonna be a beaten, bleedin’, heaving kind of guy…”:Blake Shelton
Blake Shelton posts anti-gay tweet, spurs reaction from LGBT community\Source: onlineusanews.com
Blake Shelton, country music star and judge on NBC’s The Voice, posted a homophobia-laced message on his Twitter last night that has spurred gay rights activist into action and resulted in a string of responses on Twitter – some apologetic, others defensive.
Last night’s message read as follows: “Re-writing my fav Shania Twain song…Any man that tries Touching my behind He’s gonna be a beaten, bleedin’, heaving kind of guy…”
According to a report published by the Advocate, Shelton has gotten positive crowd feedback in the past from comments like this one in which he mocks the LGBT community. For example, at the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas over the weekend, Shelton joked about actor Jake Gyllenhaal ending his relationship with singer Taylor Swift.
After noting that he didn’t “understand in the first place” why anyone would break up with someone like Swift (“she’s beautiful, she’s talented, she’s sweet”), he paused and noted, “wait a minute, he [Gyllenhaal] was in Brokeback Mountain.” The comment prompted laughter and applause from the audience – and according to some, kicked off a stream of cracks at the expense of the LGBT community that have since become part of Shelton’s repertoire.
Despite the obvious anti-gay subtext of Shelton’s recnet tweet, he has since posted a variety of responses to his angry followers – some of which are apologetic, many others of which are downright defensive.
Shelton’s first response, posted today, reads, “Ba! Ha! Reading all my anti-gay hate tweets…Ha! Ha! If people only knew even a little about me, my family and friends. Dumb assess…”
While he followed up with an apology for any misconceptions connected with the initial post (“Hey y’all allow me to seriously apologize for the misunderstanding with the whole re-write on the Shania song…”), Shelton remained on the defensive in subsequent tweets. Minutes prior to printing this story, we checked back on Blake Shelton’s status: the tweets read, “when it comes to gay/lesbian rights or just feelings…I love everybody. So go look for a real villain and leave me out of it!!”
Update: As of 11:50 a.m., GLAAD’s Director of Communications Rich Ferrano announced that, after working with the gay activist organization’s Entertainment Media team over the course of the morning, Blake Shelton issued an updated apology for last night’s comments.
Shelton’s tweet reads: “I want my fans and The Voice fans to know that anti-gay and lesbian violence is unacceptable!!!!” Read the live message athttp://twitter.com/#!/blakeshelton/statuses/66198000459984896.
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