There are certain countries in the world—countries where like, I have millions of fans—where it’s just straight up illegal to be gay. It’s just like, not allowed. And like, what? I’m gonna say that that entire country is wrong? I’m gonna be vibing with all these people from that country at a concert one night and like, chilling with their president the next morning, and then back in the U.S., back on home soil, I’m gonna be like: Yo, that government is fucked up and those people need to get their shit together. Who the fuck am I? How can I possibly judge people like that? When we’re all in the room together, I’m ONE OF THEM, you know? I’m a part of that society.

I play in places where they just chop off women’s heads with swords. Seriously! That’s what happens! I play in places where you can’t use Google or whatever. And like, yeah, that sounds crazy to me, but like, what? I’m gonna be so arrogant that I’m gonna come out and be like: I’m taking a stand. This shit is wrong.

What the fuck? Who AM I?

I remember I was gonna play this concert in Tel Aviv, you know, in Israel, and like, all these activist groups were passing around this petition like: Yo, you can’t play there, yo, you gotta show your support for the Palestinians by not playing a concert there. And I was just like: Do you people even understand how this WORKS?

When you ask me to do that shit, like, what you’re asking me to do is to basically nail myself down to a certain number of principles that you’ve decided RIGHT NOW, in the context of YOUR WORLD, are the most important principles that a person can have. And I get it. Like, I get that for most people, their context is really important. They’ve gotta use that shit to guide their decisions. But for me, like, and I’m not trying to sound self-important or something, but for me, I’m just operating on a different plane. I’m flying here and there and there and there, and I’m living for tomorrow. I’m trying to see the whole picture. That’s honestly the biggest thing I’m working on all the time, like: How can I expand my perspective? How can I see MORE?

And so that’s why it upsets me so much when people gang up on Bob because of this thing he said or that thing he said, because the idea that Bob has hatred for a certain type of people is just so fucking offensive. If Bob is saying something about gay people, he’s not trying to put them down or to talk shit about them—he’s just saying what he thinks. He’s talking about what he’s observed, the conclusions he’s come to, and just because he’s not saying the generally ACCEPTED thing where YOU come from doesn’t make him some kind of monster or some kind of super-villain. Maybe you just need to step out of your frame of reference, take off the specific glasses that you’ve been wearing, and try to hear where he’s coming from. Maybe then you’ll understand him.