A user on TikTok called out Kidz Bop for gay erasure after noticing the famed producers of infamously cringe-worthy covers songs for kids had removed gay references from their syrupy version of Lil Nas X's hit track "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)."
The user, @combat_ostrich, had been reviewing the changes made to the song when a commenter noted the erasure.
"They took out boy?" one commenter asked.
"Yes they did," Combat Ostrich said in a follow-up video. "In fact, they took out all references that the song is written about a man from the perspective of another man. I wonder why on earth they would have done that?" they say.
In an earlier video, Combat Ostrich had been noting the changes to the lyrics made for the Kidz Bop cover.
"'Singin' and dancin' with your friends,'" Combat Ostrich reads. "I'm pretty sure the original line was 'cocaine and drinkin' with your friends.'"
Ostrich did admit she understood that consuming alcohol and cocaine is illegal for children.
This is not the first time Kidz Bop has censored songs covered by its young singers. The website Pudding.Cool has a quiz and infographic helping users identify songs and lyrics changed by Kidz Bop. The group notes Kidz Bop censorship of songs is most often based on references to drugs and alcohol, profanity, and sexual references.
While the original music video for "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" is a gay visual extravaganza, it does feature a psychedelic Garden of Eden, a suggestive snake looking to score, plenty of Greek mythological references, and enough physical contact to make one wonder why Kidz Bop wanted to cover this piece at all. While the young Kidz Bop actors are clearly talented and eager, their sanitized version looks like it could be from a modern multi-ethnic reboot of The Brady Bunch, where the kids decide to put on a show poolside at the country club.
The cover did get the attention from X himself, though, who took to Twitter to share the lyrics to his followers...
You can watch a special "behind-the-scenes" video for Kidz Bop's cover of "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)," as well as Lil Nas X's original version, below.
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