Todrick Hall praised his friend Taylor Swift on Friday, saying people don’t realize what a huge deal it was for her to speak out in support of LGBT rights in her new music video.
“I know that it is a dangerous thing, or a scary thing more I should say, for somebody on such a huge level who has so many fans that are in the bible belt and in the midwest, who completely don’t agree with the lifestyle that I lead,” Hall said on BuzzFeed News’ AM to DM.
Hall was an executive producer and appeared in the music video for Swift’s song “You Need To Calm Down.” The song’s lyrics address anti-gay protesters, with Swift telling them to “control your urges to scream about all the people you hate / ‘Cause shade never made anybody less gay.”
View this video on YouTube
Swift recently told Vogue that she made the decision to be more vocal about her support of gay rights after a conversation with Hall.
“Maybe a year or two ago, Todrick and I are in the car, and he asked me, What would you do if your son was gay?” she said
Swift said she was saddened that her friend even had to ask the question, and realized that if he didn’t know the answer, her fans probably didn’t either.
“If he was thinking that, I can’t imagine what my fans in the LGBTQ community might be thinking,” she said in the interview. “It was kind of devastating to realize that I hadn’t been publicly clear about that.”
Hall said he was especially impressed by Swift because she was likely speaking directly to fans who disagreed with her.
“For her to put out a video that’s completely like backing [gay rights] and also saying that anybody who goes out of their way to scream and yell and make posters and go against those people’s lifestyle, needs to calm down and that’s a lot of her fans, a lot of people that follow her,” Hall pointed out.
“She definitely does have fans who don’t agree with gay marriage, I’m sure.”
Hall said despite the potential backlash, Swift never wavered in her commitment.
“I didn’t see her wince or be like ‘I don’t know if I should do this,’” Hall reflected. “She was 100% like ‘this is something that needs to happen that i need to do.’”
“And, as her friend,” Hall added, “I obviously couldn’t be more proud of her.”
Otillia Steadman is the world news operations manager for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.
Contact Otillia Steadman at [email protected].
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