‘It Didn’t Affect the World’

Doja found herself in hot water with much of her own fanbase (again — she sometimes revels in it) after uploading a photo to her Instagram in October with her sporting the t-shirt. Now, in a new interview with Apple Music. the rapper is weighing in.

She did replace the original post with a cropped close-up of her face, tongue sticking out, but the comments still reflect the content of that original piece with one person writing, “You support nazis? lol are you stupid….?” Another commented, “girl get it together. this isn’t cute or funny.”

Speaking to Ebro Darden for Apple Music, Doja said, “You can’t know everything.” She explained that she just thought Hyde was funny and denied the narrative that the shirt was harmful in some way, saying, “It’s not an attack.”

“First of all, I’m not a political person at all,” Doja explained. “I feel like when it comes to that sort of thing, I have to back the f–k away. Politics are not something that I wanna sweep into my life. I just want creativity and joy and just sort of the immediate reality of my friends, my family and my music and whatever.”

She went on to say of the t-shirt in particular, “It didn’t affect the world in a way where we have to look behind our backs. We don’t.”

After a brief pause, she speculated, “Me saying that right now, I’m gonna get a lot of responses of people saying ‘yes it did, it’s going to change everything'”

In response to the notion that a t-shirt she might wear in a soclal media post could have the power to change anything, Doja shot back, “I also think that I’m way too f–king famous. 100 percent.”

“I’m doing what I can slowly but surely to separate myself from this kind of narrative or whatever this world is that I kind of built,” she said of her recent rise. “I’m fine tuning it and tailoring it to what I want out of it.”

“I feel like it doesn’t matter what you say, it doesn’t matter what some people know,” she went on. “There’s fans that I have that know I don’t put any involvement into whatever the f–k that negative s–t was. I am more just: funny guy on T-shirt, wore it that day.”

After spending so long expounding on the controversy, Doja said she didn’t need to explain herself or prove herself “to a bunch of people who are just gonna project no matter what I say.” Just as she knows she has those who will stand by her, she believes those people who’ve decided she’s “evil” won’t change their stance, either.

Doja has enjoyed — and we do think that’s accurate — a tumultuous relationship with her own fanbase, famously trolling them for dubbing themselves as “kittenz” over the summer, costing her 180,000 followers.

There’s also a narrative out there that she actively hates her fans, which the artist denies. Still others suspected it was all part of an art piece in anticipation of the debut of her Scarlet persona for her latest album of the same name, which came out September 22.

Doja clarified to Apple Music that she’s never actually said she hates her fans, acknowledging that she enjoys needling them in a comedic way, like when she said her fans “fell for it” with her “cash grab” albums.

“It’s definitely something, and I know that people who get it, get it, and I’m fine with that,” Doja explained. “I don’t need to have to explain my sense of humor or explain comedy to anyone.”

Her latest controversy, perhaps thankfully, has nothing to do with her relationship with her fans. Instead, Doja was accused of blackface ahead of the release of a playful interview where “Scarlett” interviews Doja.

Scarlet, as had been seen previously in multiple videos and even live performances, is coated in gloopy red paint. It was this that some mistook for blackface, leading Doja to share a few images of the character with the caption, “”YOU HAVE TO BE … A VERY SPECIAL … KIND … OF F–KING STUPID.”

She also had a nod to that comedic contention she shares with her afns in the clip. “This might be a silly question,” asks “Scarlet” Doja in the clip. “Do you appreciate the people and the fans who support your music?”

Cutting over to Doja herself as the guest, we get a few snippets from her inner monologue — “I hate my fans” and “My fans are dumb” — before she answers out loud, “Yeah,” and gets a huge reaction from the audience. You can check out that full self-interview below and her full in-depth and vulnerable conversation with Apple Music above.