After facing controversy for slamming the inclusion of a same-sex couple in Disney’s 2022 movie Lightyear, Snoop Dogg has changed his tune.
The rapper, hip-hop icon and business mogul has teamed with GLAAD to back Spirit Day, an annual initiative that rallies thousands of celebrities, influential voices, media outlets, studios, brands, corporations, sports teams, tech leaders and more to wear purple and show support for LGBTQ youth. This year’s installment takes place today, Oct. 16, and finds Snoop showing his support by wearing purple while having a conversation with The Voice contestant Jeremy Beloate, an out member of the LGBTQ community who competed on Team Snoop on the NBC reality series.
Snoop and Beloate talk about their friendship since meeting on The Voice and tease new music. Beloate tells Snoop about his own experience with bullying as a kid while sharing advice he has for others who might be experiencing the same.
Snoop has taken his support a step further by collaborating with Beloate on a new song titled “Love is Love” that is featured in a new episode of Snoop’s animated children’s series Doggyland on YouTube. Beloate voices a puppy named Zippy that joins the Doggyland family to sing about love. The cast of characters is led by the Snoop-voiced Bow Wizzle, a main character that serves as the adult mentor.
“Our parents are different. No two are the same but the one thing that’s for certain is the love won’t change. Families are special. They are so unique. Everybody’s got a purpose more than what you see. We love you parents. We love you so,” sing the pups as a series of same-sex families appear onscreen with their pups.
“It’s teaching parenthood. It’s teaching situations that kids in the world is going through right now in a beautiful way through song, dance, melody, just trying to get more clarity on how we live and the way we live. And I felt like this music is a beautiful bridge to bringing understanding,” Snoop says during the interview with Beloate. “This is a program we’ve been doing for years where we involve kids. These are things that kids have questions about so now hopefully we can help answer these questions and help them to live a happy life and understand that love is love.”
Snoop continued: “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.”
Beloate is also in business with Snoop’s Death Row Records after competing on his team on The Voice. He dropped his first single “Show Me (How Fast You Can Break My Heart),” which is now available. Produced by Matias Mora, the upbeat track in inspired by the thrills of newfound attraction.
“For the past 10 months, I’ve been exploring who I am as a recording artist after finishing as a finalist on NBC’s The Voice. With the support of Snoop Dogg and after signing to Death Row Records, I’ve had the space to really discover what feels honest and true to me,” Beloate posted on Instagram. “When I first started this process, I wasn’t sure which part of myself I wanted to lead with. I admire artists like Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and my beautiful friend Todrick — who know how to navigate every corner of this industry while staying grounded in who they are. I’ll always sing the classics and stay connected to my theatrical roots — but for my artist project, this alt-pop lane feels like the perfect fit.”
Today’s news comes nearly two months after Snoop inspired controversy for comments he made during an episode of the It’s Giving podcast. He detailed a shocking experience he had when he took his grandchildren to see Pixar and Disney’s Toy Story spinoff, Lightyear, as it featured a montage of two women sharing a kiss and raising a child. The scenes sparked a barrage of questions from his grandchildren about same-sex couples that he “don’t have an answer for.”
“They’re like, ‘She had a baby — with another woman,’” Snoop recalled on the podcast. The section featuring his comments were abruptly deleted on YouTube. “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!’” He recalled thinking, “Oh shit, I didn’t come in for this shit. I just came to watch the goddamn movie.” Snoop tried telling his grandson, “Hey man, just watch the movie,” but that he just kept firing off questions: “‘They just said, she and she had a baby — they’re both women. How does she have a baby?’”
“It fucked me up,” Snoop continued. “I’m like, scared to go to the movies now. Y’all throwing me in the middle of shit that I don’t have an answer for. It threw me for a loop. 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, the origin story of the human Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear, featured Chris Evans’ voice as the title character. The animated pic also included an LGBTQ relationship between Buzz’s best friend and commander, Alisha Hawthorne (voiced by Uzo Aduba), and her wife, Kiko, with glimpses of their life as a couple and an onscreen kiss. The Hollywood Reporter previously reported that the same-sex kiss was nearly cut from the film during the creative process, but after internal backlash from employees around Disney’s previous public silence on Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, the kiss was reinstated in the final cut.
After Snoop’s comments started to inspire backlash online, Hollywood Unlocked posted a video on Instagram featuring Ts Madison calling out the rapper. In the comments section, an account belonging to Snoop responded with a comment that the rapper’s rep claimed to be fake: “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.”
