Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Lil Nas X writes heartfelt letter to 14-year-old self about coming out publicly: ‘This will open doors for other queer people’

Singer released the music video for his single ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ on Friday

Isobel Lewis
Friday 26 March 2021 09:29 GMT
Kevin Hart interrupts Lil Nas X as he tries to explain why he chose to come out as gay

Lil Nas X has written a letter to his 14-year-old self to mark the release of the music video for his new single “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”.

The rapper – real name Montero Lamar Hill – released the video for the song on Friday (26 March), which sees him travelling through a fictional land, kissing an alien and giving the devil a lapdance.

“In life we hide the parts of ourselves we don’t want the world to see,” the voiceover at the top of the video says.

“We lock them away, we tell them ‘no’, we banish them. But here, we don’t. Welcome to Montero.”

You can watch the full video below...

Read more:

Celebrating the video’s release, Lil Nas X shared a letter to his teenage self on Instagram, addressing his decision to come out as gay in 2019 while “Old Town Road” was the No 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100.

“Dear 14-year-old Montero,” he said. “I wrote a song with our name in it. It’s about a guy I met last summer.

“I know we promised to never come out publicly, I know we promised to never be ‘that’ type of gay person, I know we promised to die with the secret, but this will open doors for many other queer people to simply exist.”

Adding that releasing that video was “very scary” for him, as people would accuse him of “pushing an agenda”, the 21-year-old continued: “But the truth is, I am. The agenda to make people stay the f*** out of other people’s lives and stop dictating who they should be.”

Lil Nas X came out to his family in June 2019 before coming out publicly on the last day of Pride Month that year.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in