Throughout entertainment history, most celebrities have avoided controversy at all costs. Of course, that makes perfect sense since there have been a lot of stars who’ve had their careers ruined after they screwed up only once. Even with that in mind, it seems pretty clear that things have escalated over the last few years. With that in mind, it makes a lot of sense that most stars are afraid of becoming one of the many stars who’ve been canceled in 2021.
Unlike all of the stars who are afraid of upsetting the masses, there are a few celebrities who have never seemed to worry about upsetting the masses. In fact, some celebrities actually seem to thrive on being controversial including Lil Nas X. In fact, looking back on his career begs an obvious question, has Lil Nas X’s controversies made him insanely rich?
Lil Nas X’s First Controversy Wasn’t Of His Own Making
In decades past, the lines between music genres were extremely well defined. Sure, there were some occasional crossover artists but that was a rarity. More recently, the lines between genres have become so blurred in some cases that they are hard to see at all. For example, bands like Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit brought together elements of rock and rap to make an all-new genre.
Even in this day and age, there is one music genre that seems to be a lot more reluctant to the idea of mixing styles, country. For proof of how hard it can be for some powerful people in the country music world to embrace change, all you have to do is look at the tale of “Old Town Road”. While it was predictable that some people wouldn’t embrace a song that mixes rap and country like “Old Town Road”, it was still shocking to see how much controversy the song caused.
After initially taking the charts by storm, Billboard suddenly banned "Old Town Road" from the country charts, explaining "does not embrace enough elements of today's country music to chart in its current version". Considering that “Old Town Road” rose to fame in part because people took note of it rising so high on the country charts, the fact that Billboard banned it seemed like a really bad thing at first. As it would turn out, however, the controversy around Billboard’s decision only propelled Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” to another level of success. After all, the Billboard controversy inspired Billy Ray Cyrus to contribute to a remix of the song that made lots of money for both artists but especially Lil Nas X.
Lil Nas X Embraces Controversy
After Lil Nas X made a fortune from the controversy that surrounded his debut hit single, it makes perfect sense that he would want to follow that pattern once again. Perhaps that is why Lil Nas X seems to be so happy to embrace controversy at every turn these days. In fact, in 2021 Lil Nas X appeared to put so much effort into being controversial that it is almost amazing that it worked so well most of the time.
Even though a lot of people don’t realize it, Lil Nas X didn’t release a full album when he put out his first hit song “Old Town Road”. Instead, it wasn’t until 2021 that Lil Nas X’s first full album Montero was released and it went on to be a sizable success for the performer. A huge portion of the reason why the album performed so well is all of the attention that the extremely controversial music video for “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” received. After all, lots of people were talking about Lil Nas X performing a striptease for the devil in the video and everyone else had to see that for themselves. Once those people began watching the controversial music video, they couldn’t help but notice how catchy the song “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” was.
In addition to Lil Nas X’s music video for “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)”, the performer put out a shoe-in 2021 that seemed like a deliberate attempt to provoke controversy. Sold for $1,000, 666 pairs of Lil Nas X’s so-called “satan shoe” that supposedly were produced with a drop of human blood and decorated with a pentagram were released to the public. Despite their hefty price tag, Lil Nas X’s “satan shoes” reportedly sold out in less than a minute. Unfortunately for Lil Nas X, however, Lil Nas X's shoes eventually had to be recalled so he couldn’t cash in on them. That said, it has to be noted that all of the headlines about his shoes almost certainly led to more people listening to Lil Nas X’s music which is something he would have made money from.
When Lil Nas X put out the music video for “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)”, it could easily be argued that he was just expressing himself and the people who got upset were overreacting. When it comes to Lil Nas X’s “satan shoes”, however, it is hard to imagine him putting that item out unless he wanted people to get extremely upset. With that in mind, it seems very likely that Lil Nas X is going to continue provoking his critics in the future and unless something changes, he will cash in on their anger. After all, it is abundantly clear that all of the outrage surrounding him has played a huge role in Lil Nas X amassing a $7 million fortune according to celebritynetworth.com.
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