“[N]ot only DO I NOT HATE gay people, I actually accept them for who and what they are,” writes Rampage Jackson, a mixed martial arts fighter and former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) light heavyweight champion. Jackson stars in the newly released movie “The A-Team,” an adaptation of the 80s TV show, taking over Mr. T’s iconic role of B. A. Baracas.
The blog post is a response to an interview published in the Los Angeles Times, which cites Mr. Jackson as yelling homophobic epithets at another man on the set and portrays Mr. Jackson in a less-than-flattering light:
“Acting is kind of gay,” Jackson said. “It makes you soft. You got all these people combing your hair and putting a coat over your shoulders when you’re cold. I don’t want a coat over my shoulders! I’m a tough-ass [individual]!”
… where “individual” replaces a word generally considered too foul to print. In an extensive statement that varies in coherency and never wavers in its disregard for basic grammar, Rampage explains the circumstances in which the interviewer got the quote and accuses the reporter of having ulterior motives.
The post, entitled “Lighten up!!” goes on to say that gay people “always seem happy and most of them I met are very kind and nice individuals.” The whole post, in fact, is remarkably sweet show of loyalty to his friends and distaste for discrimination. Rampage writes:
“I am a black man from Memphis Tennessee who grew up in the south where I faced discrimination my whole life. I know very well how it feels for someone to judge you for something you have no control over so having gone through that I know how it feels. I took a vow that I didn’t even have to say that I would never discriminate against anybody for anything other that how they treat me or others around them.”
The supposedly homophobic slurs, Rampage explains, were yelled at a friend in friendly back-and-forth. Rampage says his friend had made fun of him for a post in which Rampage is pictured promoting a friend’s bar gay bar. Apparently, that day in the gay bar involved significantly fewer gay interactions than a normal day in the life of Rampage Jackson:
“No one offered to buy me a drink. Not once did anybody try to take pictures with me with their arms all around me or do the what I call the ‘prom date picture’.. taking a picture while holding your lower back.. which is my pet peeve by the way. Honestly I mean this in the best way, me being a sports figure I attract a lot of male attention wherever I go and MOST straight fans act GAYER than any guys that was at this gay bar that I visited my homegirl at.”
A high point of this treatise is when, in a hilarious defense of his so-called homophobia, Rampage compares gay people to fat girls, saying:
“like most straight guys I joke around with the whole gay thing and I see it as comedy, not saying that’s right or wrong but I don’t do it out of hate. I don’t hate fat girls but I make fun of them too.”
The full post can be viewed by registering on Rampage Jackson’s website.