Pharrell Says There’s No Room for Prejudice Regarding Kim Burrell’s Homophobic Comments

Pharrell was supposed to perform a song from the Hidden Figures soundtrack with Kim Burrell during an appearance on Ellen, but days before their scheduled appearance, Burrell posted a video of herself making homophobic comments about members of the LGBTQ community. The show's titular host Ellen DeGeneres, who is one of the entertainment world's first openly gay women, decided against having Burrell as a guest a few days later.

Today (Jan. 5), Skateboard P and Janelle Monae appeared as featured guests DeGeneres' day time talk show to promote Hidden Figures, and the "Happy" performer discussed Burrell's homophobic comments at length. While Pharrell admits that he still has love for Burrell and that she's a great talent, he made it clear that he wasn't cool with the gospel singer's offensive rant.

"There’s no room for any kind of prejudice in 2017, and moving on," the Neptunes member tells Ellen in the video up top. "[Burrell is] a fantastic singer and I love her, just like I love everybody else. And we all gotta get used to that. We all have to get used to everyone’s differences and understand that this is a big, gigantic, beautiful, colorful world, and it only works with inclusion and empathy. It only works that way."

Hidden Figures chronicles the struggle and subsequent triumph of a few Black women fighting against racism as they make some of the most important contributions to NASA as they set their sights on outter space. Pharrell played a huge role in producing the soundtrack for the film, and he performs on all but two of the songs on the tracklist. One of those songs is "I See Victory," which features Burrell's vocals. You can stream the album for yourself here.

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