Beyoncé removes offensive term for people with disabilities from new song on her album Renaissancejust weeks after rapper Lizzo also changed lyrics by deleting the same word.
“The word, used unintentionally in a harmful manner, will be replaced,” a spokeswoman for Beyoncé wrote in a statement to The Associated Press on Monday.
The song “Heated,” which was co-written with Canadian rapper Drake, among several other collaborators, uses the word “spaz,” which is considered a pejorative reference to the medical term “spastic diplegia,” a form of cerebral palsy.
Lizzo also removed the word from one of her songs, “Grrrls,” in June after disability rights activists complained about the lyrics. Lizzo said in a statement that she never intended to promote derogatory language.
It was a rights activist, Hannah Diviney, who decried Lizzo’s words, which led to the change. She wrote on Twitter that hearing the word Beyoncé used again “felt like a slap in the face to me, to the disability community, and to the progress we’ve been trying to make with Lizzo.”
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