Ellen Degeneres talked about why she cancelled gospel singer Kim Burrell’s appearance on her show today.
Burrell was scheduled to sing “I See a Victory” with Pharrell on The Ellen Show before video surfaced of Burrell engaged in a homophobic tirade. On Tuesday, Ellen announced on Twitter that Burrell would not appear on her show.
Today Ellen explained why she cancelled Burrell’s appearance: “I actually didn’t know her, her name is Kim Burrell. She made a statement she was doing a Facebook Live and she said some very not nice things about homosexuals so I didn’t feel that was good of me to have her on the show to give her a platform after she was saying things about me.”
“I say it all the time, you know, when I say ‘Be kind to one another,’ I feel that,” she continued. “As someone who has received a lot of hate and prejudice and then discrimination because of who I choose to love, I just don’t understand anyone who experienced that kind of oppression or anything like that, how… It only gives me more compassion. It gives me more empathy. I want everyone… I don’t ever want anyone to feel hurt because they’re different.”
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“There’s no space, there’s no room for any kind of prejudice in 2017 and moving on. There’s no room,” Pharrell said. “I love her, just like I love everybody else and we all got to get used to that. We all have to get used to everyone’s differences and understand that this is a big, gigantic, beautiful, colorful world and it only works with inclusion and empathy. It only works that way.”