Erykah Badu defends Adolf Hitler, Bill Cosby
Singer Erykah Badu has never shied away from controversy, and this time, the artist has even gone as far as to defend Adolf Hitler and disgraced comedian Bill Cosby. The musician said in an interview with Vulture that she sees the good in everyone because she's a Pisces.
Badu was also asked about her connections to controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and his alleged anti-Semitism. Badu said she doesn't "choose sides." Then she said, "I'm a humanist. I see good in everybody. I saw something good in Hitler."
The interviewer, clearly surprised, pressed her about Hitler, and Badu doubled down, saying he was a "wonderful painter." The interviewer responded that Hitler was a horrible painter, and Badu admitted, "Okay, he was a terrible painter. 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."
She admitted that she does not adhere to popular opinion or "hive mentality" and that she would never want "a group of white men who believe that the Confederate flag is worth saving to feel bad."
When asked about separating art from the artist, Badu said about Cosby, "I would have to really think about it and know the facts in each of those situations before I made a judgment. Because I love Bill Cosby, and I love what he's done for the world. 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."
Badu was once hit with a fine and probation in 2010 for walking naked in front of the Dallas site where President John F. Kennedy was shot fatally in 1963.
