Rapper Boosie Told to ‘Shut TF Up’ After Walking Out of ‘The Color Purple’
Boosie BadAzz isn’t about to start a Letterboxd account if the public backlash to his review of The Color Purple is any indication.
“I had to walk out of this Color Purple movie ([and] two other older couples walked out also) because I had my little girls with me,” Boosie, 41, wrote via X on Tuesday, January 2. The controversial rapper, who has a history of holding anti-LGBTQIA+ views, objected to the relationship between Celie (Fantasia Barrino) and Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson) in the 2023 cinematic adaptation of The Color Purple musical.
“It seemed like a [rainbow] love story! Good acting, but whoever wrote the script is pushing the narrative hard. As a parent, I will not let my little girl watch this film,” wrote Boosie (real name Torrence Ivy Hatch Jr.), who didn’t specify which daughters he had with him. (He shares eight children with six women.)
Fans immediately dragged his comments, with one X user saying, “Boosie, SHUT TF UP.” “Boosie watching two adults have a consensual relationship,” wrote comedian Sam Jay, who shared a reaction GIF of Michael Scott from The Office.
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“Boosie, nobody gives a f– if you walked out. Like seriously, nobody,” added another user. “Boosie is so dumb. I’m embarrassed to be from the same city as him,” wrote another, adding, “I’ve never read the book [The Color Purple] or [seen] the movie and I still knew there was a same-sex love plot. Just dumb.”
“Mind you, Boosie’s oldest daughter is a lesbian,” wrote April Reign, who created the #OscarsSoWhite campaign in 2015. “So you can imagine the lack of support she’s receiving. He wrote a diss track about his next oldest daughter a few months ago. So … If you didn’t read the book, see the musical, or watch the first movie, just say that, Torence.”
Others called Boosie hypocritical for releasing the 2015 song “Do the Most,” which included lines about two girls “kissing in the back seat” and liking “girls who like girls that attract me.”
“But [you’d] be ok if you were in the mix of the two ladies?” asked journalist Jzon Azari in response to Boosie’s original tweet. “You’ve done way worse and said even more disrespectful things in your music than what that movie included. It’s 2024, find some common sense.”
In September 2023, Boosie said on an episode of “The Danza Project” that he turned down a $250,000 performance fee because he didn’t want to perform at an LGBTQIA+ event. “I told them I have nothing against it at all. But that’s not what I push, and that’s not what I believe in,” he said before claiming that he doesn’t hate the LBGTQIA+ community. “My assistant is gay,” he said. “This man deals with millions of dollars for me. I trust gay people more than regular people. Real talk.”
Boosie has also clashed over the years with Dwyane Wade over the NBA champ’s support for his transgender daughter. In 2020, Boosie went on a transphobic rant against the then-12-year-old Zaya, telling Wade, 41, that he was wrong for supporting Zaya’s gender identity while imploring the basketball legend not to allow his child to undergo gender reassignment surgery.
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Wade took the high road in 2021 during an appearance on the “I Am Athlete” podcast. “People in the transgender community that are getting killed. It’s kids that are murdering themselves, that are hanging themselves, they’re killing themselves because of something as simple as acceptance,” he said. “Something as simple as unconditional love is not being given to these kids, and I’ll be goddamned if my child is going to be that person because of something as simple as me supporting who you are.”
“So, Boosie,” added Wade, “I thank you, because you’re allowing the conversation to keep going forward. … You might not have the answer today. I don’t have all the answers, but we’re growing from all these conversations.”
