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- Isaiah Rashad told The Breakfast Club he deconstructed his masculinity and spent time getting to know himself.
- Two nonconsensual sex tapes of him with men were leaked; he had not publicly discussed having relationships with men.
- He stayed silent for months, later telling Joe Budden in 2022 he identified as sexually fluid.
- After the leak he crashed his car, faced family tragedies, and said there is no manual for being a bisexual Black man.
Isaiah Rashad has had time to reflect since he was forced to publicly confront his sexual identity, and now says he feels “blessed.”
Speaking to The Breakfast Club after the release of his first project in five years, “It’s Been Awful,” the 34-year-old rapper opened up about the internal work he’s done during that time.
“I went through some shit to an extent, but it was, you know… between being an artist and the expectations of that, and I guess the deconstruction of my masculinity, it’s been a lot of getting to know myself,” Rashad said.
He told host Charlamagne that he had been grappling with his masculinity before the public began discussing and dissecting his sexuality.
“I’m blessed to how everything happened with me,” he said. “And the reception of everything. Because it allowed me to really step back and re-examine what I was doing. Regardless of how much I love myself, I still put myself in an irresponsible situation for anyone to control my narrative.”
Less than a year after he released his second studio album, “The House Is Burning,” Rashad became the subject of online discourse unrelated to his music. Two unconsensually released sex tapes of him with men were leaked, and the rapper had never publicly spoken about having relationships with men prior.
In a time where rapid response is the typical trend, Rashad chose not to speak about or acknowledge the sex tapes for months. It wasn’t until a 2022 interview with Joe Budden that he said he identified as sexually fluid.
The Tennessee artist also opened up about the dark period of his life following the leak, telling Budden that he crashed his car in the days after the video was posted. He also said he was dealing with a separate trauma entirely; his grandfather died, his grandmother was battling cancer, and it was a challenging time for his family.
Since then, he’s learned that there’s not a right or wrong way to navigate his identity.
“At some point, I’ve accepted that they don’t make a manual for being a bisexual Black men,” he said. “It was less hiding myself from anything, and more so not knowing how to not be ostracized.”
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