A far-right news host has accused the Teletubbies of being “little gay demons” after they asked for a collaboration with Lil Nas X.
Lauren Witzke, an American Christian Nationalist and former TV host, made the comments in response to a viral Teletubbies post.
Following the release of Lil Nas X’s debut album on 17 September, the children’s TV stars took to Twitter to ask for a feature on his next album.
This went alongside images of each character edited onto his album cover, which the Old Town Road star also shared.
“Alright bet! me and tinky winky on the hook, dipsy & po on the verses and we’ll let laa laa do the outro,” Lil Nas X wrote.
Witzke criticised the “demons” on her Instagram page, sharing the Teletubbies’ viral tweet with her followers.
She said: “I always knew that the Teletubbies were little gay demons.”
Witzke is not the first far-right person to criticise the Teletubbies, as in 2019 Sebastian Gorka, a former aide to Donald Trump, claimed that the Teletubbies “started that whole trans thing.”
He made the statement after someone complained that children have been “brainwashed” by schools into accepting LGBTQ+ people.
“Above a certain age you have to take responsibility for your own education and your own understanding of the truth,” Gorka said. “I think that whole trans thing started with Teletubbies. Remember? One of them wore a tutu.”
Lil Nas X has faced fierce criticism from conservative critics, who have slammed his music for its sexually explicit nature and depictions of religious themes.
In his acceptance speech for the Video of the Year award at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, Lil Nas X brilliantly showed how unbothered he is by the criticism as he thanked the LGBTQ+ community for their support.
“Let’s go,” the Industry Baby star said. “Wow, oh my God. Okay, first I wanna say thank you to the gay agenda, let’s go gay agenda!”
His words were met with an uproar of cheers from the crowd before Lil Nas X went on to thank several members of his team for their work.
.@LilNasX can we get a feature on the next album? 🦋💕 pic.twitter.com/b6BNsr7Lz6
— Teletubbies (@TeletubbiesHQ) September 17, 2021
The That’s What I Want hitmaker won big at the 12 September awards ceremony, also taking home Moonmen for Best Direction and Best Visual Effects for his album’s title track.
In his VMA performance, Lil Nas X highlighted the struggle of those living with HIV in the south of the US.
He was seen wearing a jacket with the number 433,816 on it in red (the universal colour of HIV awareness) – representing the number of people living with the virus in that region as of 2015.
GLAAD praised Lil Nas X on Twitter, saying: “@LilNasX delivered a powerful performance at the #VMAs and shined a spotlight on the stigma that fuels HIV, especially across the South.
“Mardrequs Harris from @SouthernAIDSCo wore the number 433,816 in red, representing the number of people living with HIV in the U.S. South.”
Lil Nas X rose to fame in 2019 following the success of his Old Town Road remix with Billy Ray Cyrus.
The song became the longest-running number one single in the US, spending 19 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and selling over 18 million units worldwide.
Since then, hits such as Montero (Call Me By Your Name) and Industry Baby have seen continued commercial success and only built the hype for his new album more.
Montero was released to an array of critical acclaim on 17 September and can be streamed here.
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