Erykah Badu Under Fire For Seeing 'Something Good' In Hitler

The singer says the Führer "was a wonderful painter."
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Erykah Badu might be trying too hard to be empathetic to people who don’t deserve it.

In an interview with Vulture, the neo-soul singer said she sees “something good” in Adolf Hitler, whom she claims “was a wonderful painter.”

Badu didn’t say she supports the infamous Nazi leader, but that she’s “an observer who can see good things and bad things.”

“If you say something good about someone, people think it means that you’ve chosen a side. But I don’t choose sides,” she added. “I see all sides simultaneously.”

Badu then explained how she can empathize with the man responsible for the Holocaust.

“Poor thing. He had a terrible childhood,” she said. “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.”

Badu was also able to find some way to support Bill Cosby, in spite of his numerous sexual assault allegations, “because I love Bill Cosby, and I love what he’s done for the world.”

She added:

But if he’s sick, why would I be angry with him? The people who got hurt, I feel so bad for them. I want them to feel better, too. But sick people do evil things; hurt people hurt people.

I know I could be crucified for saying that, because I’m supposed to be on the purple team or the green team. I’m not trying to rebel against what everybody’s saying, but maybe I want to measure it.

Badu’s impressions of President Donald Trump are slightly less supportive, but she said she isn’t sure if his racist comments are really what’s in his heart.

The thing about Trump is that he’s a bad guy to the point where it looks manufactured,” she said. “Are we playing games here? He can’t really be that bad. I’m not a conspiracy theorist at all — I don’t give a shit about that stuff — but it looks like Trump’s just trying to spark division. It looks like a game. Why are we being toyed with?”

As you might have expected, Badu’s comments have come under fire on Twitter.

To be fair, Badu got at least one supporter.

However, some musical colleagues of hers just didn’t want to engage.

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