“I was just caught off guard and had no answer for my grandsons,” rapper says
Snoop Dogg has addressed the controversial comments he made over his response to his grandson’s questions about a same-sex couple in Lightyear, and the backlash that ensued.
“My bad,” he wrote in a comment on an Instagram post shared on Wednesday from Hollywood Unlocked. It features the hosts discussing Snoop Dogg’s comments with media personality Ts Madison.
“I was just caught off guard and had no answer for my grandsons,” he wrote. “All my gay friends [know] what’s up, they been calling me with love. My bad for not knowing the answers for a 6 yr old. Teach me how to learn. I’m not perfect.”
During a recent appearance on the It’s Giving… Podcast, Snoop told a story about watching Lightyear with his grandson when Snoop said his grandson asked him, “‘Papa Snoop? How she have a baby with a woman? She’s a woman.’ Ah shit, I didn’t come in here for this shit. I just came to watch the goddamn movie.” Snoop said he encouraged his grandson to just watch the movie, but his grandson continued to ask more questions.
“I’m scared to go to the movies now,” Snoop said. “Y’all throwing me in the middle of shit that I don’t have an answer for.” In a since-deleted part of the podcast, he said that the Lightyear scene “threw me for a loop,” adding, “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.”
Lightyear screenwriter Lauren Gunderson also responded to the topic on Wednesday. “So. I created the LIGHTYEAR lesbians,” Gunderson wrote in a statement on Instagram. Gunderson detailed that “a key character needed a partner, and it was so natural to write ‘she’ instead of ‘he.’ As small as that detail is in the film, I knew the representational effect it could have. Small line, big deal. I was elated that they kept it.
“I’m proud of it. To infinity. Love is love,” Gunderson continued. “I was one of a few writers they had on it over the years, which is very common for screenwriting of course. I had very little to do with the final script. But I was proud to see a happy queer couple (even for a few seconds) onscreen. I know they got a lot of shit for this inclusion, but stuff like this matters because beautiful love like this exists.”