Todrick Hall Writes Open Letter to Defend His New Series After Intense Backlash
Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images, Todrick Hall via Instagram Reading Time: 3 minutes
Following weeks of upsetting social media backlash against his new series, Todrick Hall posted a handwritten open letter to address the issue. The singer specifically called out queer people who were extremely hating on the show.
Last January 20, The Real Friends of WeHo aired its premiere episode on MTV. The series essentially revolves around the lives of six gay men in their attempt to navigate West Hollywood. Unfortunately though, such storyline wasn’t loved by the public, thus obtaining unpleasant reviews both inside and outside the web. At the moment, numerous detractors have signed an online petition to cancel the show.
Todrick Hall Addresses Negative Feedback Amid Premiere of The Real Friends of WeHo
In a 10-paged latter he uploaded on Instagram, Todrick Hall shared his frustration over the current state of the series. He subsequently expressed his disappointment for the LGBTQ+ community who he claims to have thrown more hate than the church.
“We fight for acceptance, yet we don’t accept our own. We fight for representation then fight against it when we get it because it doesn’t come in the form we’d hoped,” he wrote.
He then proceeded to question why gays are making petitions to take the show off screen. According to him, their sector failed to see that MTV now has “three consecutive hours of queer representation.”
“The gays are creating petitions to get a queer show taken off the air, instead of focusing on the other 165 hours of the week when representation is either lacking or nonexistent,” he wrote.
While Hall is “super proud” of the show, he admitted that he’s not in the right mental space to celebrate. Be that as it may, he thanked the people who sent their uplifting words amid the difficult time.
He Tells Queer People to Wake Up
A few days after the Instagram post, the “Attention” singer wrote another open letter to back the show against mean comments. He specifically addressed the criticism saying that the series consists of “a bunch of rich, fit, entitled privileged gay men.”
“Why are we thrilled to watch rich Kardashians or Real Housewives, but we only want to watch gays be underdogs, not well off, not too confident?” he wrote.
Allegedly, a West Hollywood gay club turned off The Real Friends during its premiere. This was reportedly followed by a cheering crowd. For Hall, this is a manifestation that the LGBTQIA+ community is fighting themselves.
“We have to know that queer people attacking our queer cast is not woke, not progressive and not going to change the situation so it’s a waste of time,” he wrote. “Wake up people, we are smarter than this.”
Elsewhere in the letter, the singer pointed out that he also wanted a longer runtime for RuPaul’s Drag Race. This is apparently because haters think that the originally 90-minute episodes of the Emmy-winning series were lessened because of the new series. Thus, Hall took the time to clarify that The Real Friends had nothing to do with the said modification.
