After the BET Awards nominations were announced Wednesday morning, which is also the first day of Pride Month, Lil Nas X called out the organization for not nominating him for the second year in a row.
“I just feel like black gay ppl have to fight to be seen in this world and even when we make it to the top, mfs try to pretend we are invisible,” he wrote in a series of now-deleted tweets that were saved and posted by People.
He began his tweet thread with the message, “thank you bet awards. an outstanding zero nominations again. black excellence!”
Responding to a tweet about why he felt he deserved to be nominated, the rapper replied, “[I don’t know,] maybe 3 of the biggest songs of last year & a critically acclaimed album… i feel like that should’ve helped me a bit.”
In September 2021, he landed three songs — “Industry Baby,” “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” and “That’s What I Want” — from his debut album “Montero” on the Billboard Top 10 chart, with eight more in the Hot 100. The album went on to be nominated for five Grammys.
The rapper came out as gay in June 2019 a week after performing “Old Town Road” with Billy Ray Cyrus at that year’s BET Awards and was nominated for a Best New Artist BET Award in 2020.
He did perform at the 2021 show, despite not being in the running for any awards himself. He was previously nominated for Best New Artist in 2020, but lost out to Roddy Ricch.
Reps for BET and the BET Awards did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.