Lil Nas X shared a heartfelt message to his fans and his teenage self on Thursday, posting an open letter addressed to “14 year old Montero.”
“I wrote a song with our name in it,” the 21-year-old, whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill, wrote in the letter posted on Instagram and Twitter. Lil Nas X also released a provocative video for the song “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” on Thursday night.
“It’s about a guy I met last summer,” he wrote. “I know we promised to never come out publicly, I know we promised to never be ‘that’ type of gay person, I know we promised to die with the secret, but this will open doors for many other queer people to simply exist.”
He goes on to say that is has been a “scary” journey for him, and says he is “pushing an agenda”: “The agenda to make people stay the fuck out of other people’s lives and stop dictating who they should be.”
Lil Nas X’s video for “Montero” features many biblical references and a dash of Greek mythology — including showing him roaming around the Garden of Eden, getting seduced by an alien version of himself, sliding down a stripper pole into hell and giving Satan a lap dance (before killing him and taking his crown for himself).
Fans praised the rapper for being “unapologetically queer” and “truly perfect”: