Bad Bunny Responds to Accusations That He “Queerbaits” With Fashion

Another day, another round of celebrity queerbaiting discourse.

In a recent Vanity Fair interview, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny opened up about being accused of “queerbaiting,” for doing everything from wearing traditionally feminine clothing like skirts to kissing a male backup dancer during a VMAs performance to dressing in drag during the music video for his song “Yo Perreo Sola,” to name a few examples.

“I get an endless number of negative comments and sexist and homophobic ones, without being homosexual, for dressing like that,” the 29-year-old said. “Maybe the queer person suffers more, but it is not like I put on a skirt and go out and they say, ‘Look how cool.’ They’re going to attack me either way.”

He continued: “You don’t know the reasons why a person is wearing that. You weren’t in his mind when he decided to put on a skirt or a blouse. You don’t know what’s inside him, what’s in his heart.”

As for whether his style represents a part of his own identity, Bad Bunny simply responded, “You do it because you want to and it makes you feel good.”

Given how much “queerbaiting” conversations dominate the gay internet these days, it can be easy to forget that the term has historically been applied to TV shows and other fiction that imply LGBTQ+ relationships or identity to attract queer viewers with no plans of actually delivering such representation.

In more recent years, even real-life figures have been accused of queerbaiting when people believe that they’re making themselves seem queer when they’re not. But accusing someone of queerbaiting just because they haven’t concretely defined their sexuality for fans and the public implies that LGBTQ+ celebrities owe the public an official coming out. For example, Heartstopper actor Kit Connor came out as bisexual last year, after feeling pressured by fans of the show who relentlessly accused a literal teenager of “queerbaiting.”

And given that breaking down the binaries of what is considered “masculine” or “feminine” clothing helps everyone to live more freely, who cares if a proven LGBTQ+ ally like Bad Bunny wears “women’s” clothes? In case you’re not familiar with Bad Bunny’s relationship to LGBTQ+ issues, a few examples: In 2020, during a performance of his song “Ignorantes” on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, the singer donned a black shirt reading “They killed Alexa, not a man with a skirt,” referencing the murder of a trans woman named Neulisa Luciano Ruiz near San Juan. He’s also currently in the process of co-executive producing Netflix’s TV adaptation of Adam Silvera’s beloved queer YA novel They Both Die at the End.