Kehlani opened up about the “highly organized” death threats she’s received at shows over her public support for Palestine.
The “Folded” singer joined The Breakfast Club on Monday (Dec. 8), during which they revealed the array of “detailed” death threats they’ve seen, which caused a “really bad paranoia” to the point that Kehlani moved residences.
“It got into my safety, my family dynamics, my friendships,” she said. “I had to move. It put me into a really bad paranoia every time I left the house of, ‘Was everybody out to get me?’ and ‘Did I need security to sit in front of my house?’ and ‘Was anybody plotting on me?’ And the death threats I got at my shows, like highly organized, typed-out, detailed death threats.”
Kehlani hopes that their peers seeing the commercial success of “Folded” even after speaking out will inspire other artists to be more outspoken themselves on issues.
“If we have the courage to do things and then we see people have success after doing the things that we deem scary, we might be more courageous to do them. I think it’s important that other artists see that I’ve been able to thrive after all those things happen,” she implored. “I mean, there’s still things that I will never be allowed to do or things that are not getting picked up.”
Kehlani continued to harp on a strength-in-numbers mentality for the artistic community. “I think if we all spoke in numbers and there was so many of us, it wouldn’t be so easy to just come after one person,” they added. “I think when you leave it to be one or two people, it’s easy to just get them out of here.”
“Folded” became Kehlani’s first No. 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart in November and the warm track reached the Billboard Hot 100’s top 10 with a peak at No. 7.
Earlier this year, Kehlani faced multiple cancellations for performances as a result of her support for Palestine. Cornell University canceled her Slope Day performance in May and SummerStage pulled the plug on her show weeks later due to “safety concerns” raised by New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office.
Watch the clip below and Kehlani’s full interview on YouTube.
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