DaBaby: Rapper criticised by Elton John and dropped by Boohoo after homophobic and HIV comments

Rapper DaBaby has been condemned by Elton John and dropped by clothing brand Boohoo after making comments about people with HIV at a US music festival.

DaBaby, whose releases have reached the heights of various charts, has received a huge backlash for remarks he made while performing at Miami's Rolling Loud festival.

He told the audience to hold their phones in the air unless they had HIV or were gay men who had sex in car parks.

He also made the false claim that HIV will "make you die in two or three weeks".

After a hugely negative online reaction to footage of the comments, DaBaby initially insisted that what he does at a live show "doesn't concern" those on the internet.

“Even my gay fans don’t got f****** Aids,” he said in a video posted on his Instagram Story.

“They don’t get Aids, my gay fans they take care of they self. They ain’t no nasty gay n*****, see what I’m saying? They ain’t no junkies.”

He added in a similarly belligerent Twitter post: "I told you y’all digested that wrong but I ain’t gone lie I’m impressed. "Now show this same amount of support when a racist cop kill one of our black ass…YA NOT."

On Wednesday night, the rapper eventually apologised.

He tweeted: "Anybody who done ever been effected by Aids/HIV y’all got the right to be upset, what I said was insensitive even though I have no intentions on offending anybody. So my apologies."

Listen to the ITV arts and entertainment podcast, Unscripted:

"But the LGBT community... I ain’t trippin on y’all, do you. y’all business is y’all business."

Sir Elton, who founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation charity in 1992, said the following day: “We’ve been shocked to read about the HIV misinformation and homophobic statements made at a recent DaBaby show. “This fuels stigma and discrimination and is the opposite of what our world needs to fight the Aids epidemic.⁣”

Fellow British musician Dua Lipa, who had previously worked with DaBaby on a remix of her song 'Levitating', said she was "horrified" by the comments.

Lipa wrote on her Instagram Story: “I really don’t recognise this as the person I worked with. I know my fans know where my heart lies and that I stand 100% with the LGBTQ community.

"We need to come together to fight the stigma and ignorance around HIV/Aids.”

Boohoo has also condemned DaBaby, becoming the first big brand to sever its relationship with him.

Its men's line decried the rapper's "homophobic language" in a statement on Wednesday.

"BoohooMAN condemn the use of homophobic language and confirm we will no longer be working with DaBaby," it said."Diversity and inclusion are part of the boohoo Group's DNA and we pride ourselves on representing the diverse customers we serve across the globe."