Arts & Media Archives - LGBTQ Nation

Rapper Snoop Dogg declares “Love is love” in pro-LGBTQ+ Spirit Day video

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 21:24:00 GMT

Rapper Snoop Dogg partnered with the LGBTQ+ media watchdog GLAAD on Thursday to commemorate Spirit Day, a day of support for queer youth. The rapper’s involvement follows comments he made in late August, saying that he was “scared to go to the movies” after not knowing how to explain to his grandson a brief scene of one woman kissing another in the Pixar animated film Lightyear .

In the Spirit Day video, Snoop wears purple (the day’s trademark color) and interviews Jeremy Beloate, an out contestant coached by Snoop in the reality singing competition The Voice . They discuss the childhood bullying Beloate faced for being a boy who likes singing as well as the support Beloate got from his family.

“It’s a beautiful thing that kids can have parents of all walks and be shown love, to be taught what love is … being able to have parents from all walks of life, whether it be two fathers, two mothers, whatever it is, love is the key,” Snoop says in the video.

In a statement, the rapper said, “Partnering with GLAAD for Spirit Day just felt right, because spreading love and respect for everybody is what real gangstas do. We’re showin’ the next generation that kindness is cool, inclusion is powerful, and love always wins.”

In the interview, the two musicians also discuss their collaboration on a song about loving your family, entitled “Love Is Love,” featured in the rapper’s animated children’s YouTube series Doggyland . In the episode, Beloate voices a puppy named Zippy, and Snoop Dogg voices the show’s main character Bow Wizzle.

“Our parents are different / No two are the same / But the one thing that’s for certain is the love won’t change,” the characters sing, as several same-sex couples join in the scene. “Families are special / They are so unique / Everybody’s got a purpose, more than what you see.”

In a late August interview, Snoop Dogg brought up Lightyear , the 2022 Pixar film that included a brief scene with a character giving her wife a chaste peck on the cheek.

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!’”

“Oh s**t, I didn’t come in for this s**t. I just came to watch the goddamn movie,” Snoop continued. But he said his grandson kept on bringing it up in the theater: “They just said, she and she had a baby. They’re both women. How does she have a baby?’”

Snoop, who is a born-again Christian, said the movie “f**ked me up. I’m like, scared to go to the movies. Y’all throwing me in the middle of s**t that I don’t have an answer for.” He did not explain why he could not answer the simple question.

“These are kids. We have to show that at this age? They’re going to ask questions. I don’t have the answer,” he said.

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Harry Potter actress says she’s a “left-wing dyke” who has “great fun” being a lesbian

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 14:41:00 GMT

Lesbian Harry Potter actress Miriam Margolyes proudly declared herself a “left-wing dyke” during an appearance on Ireland’s renowned talk show, The Late Late Show with Patrick Kielty.

Kielty asked Margolyes about having previously described herself as “unapologetically woke.” She replied, “I’m a left-wing dyke and I love it. I love being a lesbian. I’m not going to apologize for that. It’s great fun.”

The host then asked her what was so fun about it, which prompted the two of them to break out in hysterics.

Margolyes, who played Herbology Professor Pomona Sprout in the Harry Potter films, has spoken before about her liberal views, opening up on a 2023 episode of the Graham Norton Show about how she became a trans ally.

“I was very keen on grammar,” she said, explaining that it was challenging for her when she learned that some people prefer to use they/them as a singular pronoun. But a trans actress, Zoe Terakes, explained it to her in a way that made sense.

“She said, ‘What does it matter to you?'” Margolyes explained. “‘If you can make somebody happy by calling them ‘they’ instead of ‘he or she,’ why not do it?’ I thought, that’s right. It doesn’t matter about grammar.”

On The Late Late Show , the actress also spoke about why she has been so vocal in support of Gaza.

“It’s important because I’m Jewish,” she said, “and it’s very important that people realize that all Jewish people are not killers, they’re not b***ards. It’s not like that. This is just a section of the Israeli people that are like that, not Jewish people, and I want that to be known and understood and be clear.”

“What happened in Gaza was utterly wrong, wicked, and terrifying. The response to the Hamas attack – the Hamas attack was terrible, of course it was, but it came from 70 years of oppression… My heart is open to anyone who needs help… and they need that.”

Her activism has also extended to the sports world. In 2022, she starred in a cheeky video urging anyone who was “a great big gay and you love football, or if you love football and also gays,” to make a “donation” to keep FIFA from allowing anti-LGBTQ+ Saudi Arabia to host what was then an upcoming World Cup.

“Queer people across the globe love football. We just can’t support it like everyone else, because the World Cup is currently being held in Qatar – and we all know how Qatar feels about the gays,” Margolyes says in the video.

“It’s our big gay duty to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” she continues. “After all, a World Cup without queer people just isn’t a World Cup.”

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AI videos showed influencer Jake Paul coming out as gay. His reaction has been surprising.

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 17:13:00 GMT

Controversial influencer and boxer Jake Paul responded this week to a deluge of deepfake videos posted to social media that show his AI-generated likeness coming out as gay.

According to Futurism , the videos were made using OpenAI’s recently launched text-to-video generator Sora 2 by users of the company’s new invite-only social app. Several clips show Paul’s startlingly realistic likeness — which OpenAI calls a “cameo” — applying make-up and announcing “I’m gay” in an exaggeratedly camp manner. Another shows Paul wearing rainbow eye make-up and boxing gloves, while yet another depicts him in a skirt and a cropped cardigan.

All of the clips bear a watermark, though notably, the watermark only shows Sora’s name and logo and does not explicitly identify them as AI-generated. Many also include tell-tale mistakes like extra fingers or missing tattoos on Paul’s likeness.

Since Sunday, September 5, the real Paul has shared several TikTok posts stitching various Sora clips with his own reactions. The first showed his fiancée, Dutch speed skater Jutta Leerdam, expressing her disapproval of the deepfakes.

“It’s not funny,” Leerdam says in the clip. “People believe…”

Subsequent posts were more tongue-in-cheek. In one, the real Paul, speaking directly to the camera, says that “this AI’s getting out of hand…” He’s then interrupted by a voice off camera offering him a Celsius energy drink — one of the brands with which Paul has an endorsement deal — which he enthusiastically accepts, abruptly adopting a stereotypically camp affect similar to the one depicted in the Sora-generated videos.

Two other clips show the real Paul applying make-up. In one , he refutes a fake get-ready-with-me video in which his deepfake likeness says he’s “rolling with” the New York Giants. The real Paul asserts that “everybody knows” he would “go with” the Philadelphia Eagles over the Giants, while conceding that Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart is “really cute” and promoting his own sports betting platform. In the other , he deadpans that “the AI stuff” is affecting his relationships with businesses and that he intends to sue people spreading video “of me doing s**t that I would literally never, ever do” — all while applying make-up.

While he appears to be taking the videos in stride, Paul, who endorsed Donald Trump’s candidacy during the 2024 presidential election, has not addressed what Futurism described as the “problematic undercurrents of homophobia” in the AI-generated clips.

It’s unclear whether Paul himself may have made it possible for users to create the posts. OpenAI’s Sora 2 safety document claims the company has “guardrails” in place to ensure that users’ audio and image likeness are used with their consent via the platform’s “cameos.”

“Only you decide who can use your cameo, and you can revoke access at any time. We also take measures to block depictions of public figures (except those using the cameos feature, of course). Videos that include your cameo—including drafts created by other users—are always visible to you. This lets you easily review and delete (and, if needed, report) any videos featuring your cameo. We also apply extra safety guardrails to any video with a cameo, and you can even set preferences for how your cameo behaves,” Sora 2’s safety doc reads.

Despite the company’s reassurances, PCMag reported last week that OpenAI has admitted that Sora 2’s safeguards failed to prevent the tool from creating sexually explicit deepfakes featuring a real person’s likeness 1.6% of the time.

And in an October 2 X post , journalist Taylor Lorenz claimed that a “stalker” had used Sora 2 to create AI deepfakes of her. Lorenz said the platform allowed her to block the unapproved content using her likeness, but as Futurism notes, it’s unclear whether Lorenz opted in to the Sora social platform in the first place.

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Out comedian apologizes for performing at Saudi Arabian comedy festival

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 17:00:00 GMT

Out comedian Jessica Kirson issued a public apology this past Friday for her recent performance at the Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia.

In a statement shared with The Hollywood Reporter , Kirson expressed her “sincere regret” for having performed at the event on September 29, and said she has “donated the entirety” of what she was paid to “a human rights organization.”

Kirson is one of the over 50 comedians — including Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Bill Burr, Kevin Hart, Pete Davidson, Aziz Ansari, and Whitney Cummings — who have drawn criticism over the past week for their participation in the festival, which began on September 26 and runs through October 9.

In a September 23 press release, Human Rights Watch described the festival as part of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s government’s aggressive campaign to launder the country’s image and attract foreign investors and tourists. The organization noted that the festival coincides with the seventh anniversary of the state-sponsored death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and comes just months after the June 14 execution of journalist Turki al-Jasser, likely for his reporting on the Saudi royal family.

Human Rights Watch called on participating comedians to use their Riyadh Comedy Festival sets “to publicly urge Saudi authorities to free unjustly detained Saudi dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists.” But, the organization said, representatives and management of a group of performers did not respond to a September 19 request for a meeting about Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses.

A Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch recently told the BBC that he had not seen a single performer address these issues either at the festival or on social media. According to THR , Kirson is so far the only performer to have released an apology for her participation in the festival.

Comedians at the festival are apparently contractually banned from performing material “that may be considered to degrade, defame or bring into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or ridicule: A) The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including its leadership, public figures, culture or people; B) The Saudi royal family, legal system, or government, and; C) Any religion, religious tradition, religious figure or religious practice,” according to a screenshot of the festival contract posted by comedian Atsuko Okatsuka on September 26.

Okatsuka turned down the offer to perform at the festival, and along with comedy stars David Cross and Marc Maron, has been one of the most vocal in condemning their fellow comics’ participation in the event. Okatsuka seemed to take a shot directly at comedians like Chappelle and Louis C.K., who have both railed against so-called “cancel culture,” when she wrote on Threads that “A lot of the ‘you can’t say anything anymore!’ Comedians are doing the festival” while agreeing “to adhere to censorship rules about the types of jokes they can make.” (In his Riyadh set, Chappelle reportedly suggested that comedians have greater freedom to speak in Saudi Arabia than in the U.S.)

In a recent open letter about the festival, Cross specifically referenced the Saudi government’s brutal treatment of LGBTQ+ people — same-sex sexual activity is punishable by death in the country — and women, as well as its executions of journalists and alleged involvement in the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S.

In her October 3 statement, Kirson wrote that her decision to perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival has “weighed heavily on my heart ever since.”

“[I’d] like to express my sincere regret for having performed under a government that continues to violate fundamental human rights,” she wrote, according to THR .

Explaining her decision, Kirson wrote that she was surprised, as an openly gay performer, to have been invited to participate in the festival, and that she specifically requested a guarantee that she “could be openly out as a lesbian on stage and perform gay material.”

“I hoped that this could help LGBTQ+ people in Saudi Arabia feel seen and valued,” she continued. “I am grateful that I was able to do precisely that — to my knowledge, I am the first openly gay comic to talk about it on stage in Saudi Arabia. I received messages from attendees sharing how much it meant to them to participate in a gay-affirming event.”

According to a recent report from the BBC , stand-up sets at the festival that included “jokes about gay and trans people” have been well-received. One woman who attended Chappelle’s performance told the outlet that the anti-trans comic’s set included “lots of jokes about trans people,” and that the response to Chappelle and Burr’s shows was “amazing.”

At the same time, THR reports, Kirson’s fans took to her Instagram with comments expressing their disappointment in her participation in the event and demanding an explanation.

“I deeply regret participating under the auspices of the Saudi government,” Kirson wrote in her statement, adding that she has donated her entire performance fee to an unspecified human rights organization “because I want that money to go to an organization that can help combat these severe issues.”

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TV reality queen Tiffany “New York” Pollard says she resonates with nonbinary gender identity

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 20:00:00 GMT

Queer reality TV personality Tiffany Pollard said in a recent interview that nonbinary gender identity “resonates” with her, leading some on social media to conclude that she came out as nonbinary.

Pollard, who first starred on the first two seasons of the 2006 reality show Flavor of Love , made her comments in a September 30 interview with PinkNews in which she said, “I really do resonate with nonbinary because I feel like we are so dual without even recognizing it,” she shared. “Because it takes two sexes for us to get here, so some days I may feel a lot more masculine and sometimes I’m super feminine, and that’s OK.”

During the interview, she also said, “The first time I ever really kissed a girl, I think it was in junior high, and I knew and it was fine. It felt good, it felt right. It had to happen at some point.”

Referencing the freedom of coming out, she added, “You gonna come out of that closet and once you do it’s like, ‘OK, wow, this world is open to me in new ways and sweetie, shoving me back in the closet is never going to be an option.’”

In response to her comments on nonbinary gender identity, one X user wrote , “[just] found out tiffany pollard is nonbinary this is kinda revolutionary to me.” Another wrote , “We fully respect and support your identity as non-binary. Everyone deserves to be seen and accepted for who they truly are. I’m glad you feel comfortable being yourself!”

Pollard publicly came out in a March 2023 video (below) in which she spoke against anti-LGBTQ+ laws, saying, “What they’re aiming to do is erase queerness. We’re proud of who we are, and yes, I’m queer too — no one can eat a p**sy like me.”

In a 2024 interview on The Jason Lee Show , Pollard said, “I have lived a very, very broad life. I’ve never been afraid to do anything that I wanted to do.”

Pollard has gained notoriety by appearing on numerous reality TV shows, including I Love New York , Brunch with Tiffany , the British version of Celebrity Big Brother , Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn , and Worst Cooks in America: Celebrity Edition . She also served as a guest judge on Season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race and hosted Hot Haus , a reality competition which garnered notoriety for queer adult content creators.

Pollard recently spoke with LGBTQ Nation ‘s sibling site Queerty about her hosting of Slayers: Wheel of Fate , an upcoming reality competition in which queer contestants must tackle physical and fear-based challenges to defend Pollard’s castle from evil Queen Karen. Contestants who fail will be fed to a “literal dragon,” Pollard says in the show’s trailer.

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