ABC/Randy HolmesErykah Badu doesn’t expect fans to “understand the way I love,” following backlash she received for voicing empathy for Adolf Hitler — a man who ordered the death of millions during World War II — in a recent Vulture interview.
On Thursday, she wrote via Twitter, “People are in real pain. So I understood why my ‘good’ intent was misconstrued as ‘bad.’ In trying to express a point, I used 1 of the worst examples possible. Not to support the cruel actions of an unwell, psychopathic Adolf Hitler, but to only exaggerate a show of compassion.”
In another tweet, she adds, “Either U read the entire VULTURE interview & U understood the message of compassion CLEARLY. OR U only read the selective, out of context Headlines, & were drawn in2 the whirlpool of collective emotion grief. I don’t want 2 force U 2understand the way I love. I’m hopeful tho.”
Erykah then wrote in another tweet on Friday, “Even encouraging words can be misinterpreted when taken out of context. Human beings are very delicate. Protect one another.”
As previously reported, the “Tyrone” singer told Vulture that she sees “something good in [Adolf] Hitler. He was a wonderful painter.”
She then acknowledges that, in fact, Hitler was a “terrible” painter, but then adds, “Poor thing. He had a terrible childhood. That means that when I’m looking at my daughter, Mars, I could imagine her being in someone else’s home and being treated so poorly, and what that could spawn. I see things like that. I guess it’s just the Pisces in me.”
In the interview, Badu also insisted that she was “not an anti-Semitic person” and claimed to have empathy for Bill Cosby, who, as previously reported, faces a retrial this spring on a sexual assault charge, and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
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