Rapper Angel Haze is pretty fed up with the world's media refusing/being too shy to acknowledge the fact that she's dating Ireland Baldwin, constantly referring to them as best mates, rather than a couple. Which they are.
Speaking to the Independent in typically straight-talking fashion, she explained: 'We fuck and friends don’t fuck. I have never fucked one of my friends. Once I see you in that way, it doesn’t happen. But we do fuck and it’s crazy and that’s weird to say because I think about it in terms of an audience reading it and them thinking, ‘What the hell?’ But it happens.'
Despite constantly appearing on each other's instagram and Twitter feeds, and being quite obviously a couple (they've instagrammed shots of themselves kissing FFS), it seems the press are a bit nervous to actually refer to them as dating. Maybe it's because, as Angel says, an interracial gay couple is still 'weird for America', or maybe it's because they never made an official statement, and nobody wants to get sued: 'I don’t know if there’s like some confirm or deny thing with the way relationships work in the media, but everyone just calls us best friends, best friends for life, like we’re just friends hanging out... it's funny,' she added.
She does recognise, however, the limitations for women - and for gay relationships in the media in general. If you take the recent (and now ex) lesbian couple du jour Cara Delevingne and Michelle Rodriguez, there was a sort of 'oh isn't that nice they're snogging' attitude, which encourages more lesbian couples to come out - but it's not quite the same for gay guys right now.
'If we were two guys, it’d be insane, negatively insane with the attention. With us it’s all being very positive, the media are like, ‘Oh they’re so cute, they’re best friends,’' she said. Cute but kind of odd in the 21st century when, erm, we're all very much aware that people are gay and that famous people are gay and we should all be totally comfortable with reporting on the fact that two famous gay people are dating. Especially if one's black and one's white. 'An interracial gay couple, I mean that’s just weird for America right now,' she added.
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.