Beyoncé fans are calling for the star to remove an ableist slur in her track ‘Heated’, which appeared on the singer’s latest album, Renaissance. The ableist slur comes in the outro of the song where Beyoncé raps: “Sp***in’ on that ass, sp*z on that ass.”
Fans were quick to point out that there was no excuse for using the slur as back in June, fellow singer Lizzo faced similar outrage for her use of the slur. After being criticised online for the word’s inclusion, Lizzo re-released the song without the slur and issued a statement saying that she “never wants to promote derogatory language.”
Activists and fans were quick to note their disappointment on social media with one disability activist tweeting “So @Beyonce used the word ‘sp*z’ in her new song Heated. Feels like a slap in the face to me, the disabled community and the progress we tried to make with Lizzo. Guess I’ll just keep telling the whole industry to ‘do better’ until ableist slurs disappear from music.”
“Beyoncé using a slur generally directed at disabled people in her music is very disappointing. Especially when it’s the same slur that another big artist was called out for recently using in one of their songs,” wrote another user.
However, some fans also came to the Houston natives defence, with one tweeting “Sp*z is a slur in the UK. Last time I checked, Beyoncé isn’t from the UK so how would she know?”
