I wish more artists handled their flops and criticism as graciously as Lil Nas X. For all the controversy his most recent single, “J Christ,” and its accompanying visual caused, it did not translate into a strong debut – which he recently acknowledged on X, formally known as Twitter. 

“We did it boys!” he posted after it debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 69. “We reached the funny number. be very proud of yourselves. this is our moment!” Lil Nas X has already released another (and much better) song, “Where Do We Go Now,” but he can’t escape discourse surrounding “J Christ” just yet.

During his appearance on the podcast On Purpose with Jay Shetty, the 24-year-old argued that the message behind the song had been misconstrued.  

“[‘J Christ’] was this thing that artistically was just supposed to be like, I’m returning … I’m back like Him, you know what I mean?” he explained. “It turned into this whole thing where it was me trying to dunk on Christians or something, and that was never what it was. Never.”

This is a claim he has now repeatedly made. Still, it conveniently ignores the reality that many people understood his analogy. Some folks simply just needed to appreciate how he presented it. To his credit, though, he has at least acknowledged the anger over a video of him eating communion wafers “looks really bad on paper,” which he has since apologized for.

“This [was a] thing that I thought was just like a little jokey fun video. I also had to think about how many of my family members are Christian, like my grandmothers and stuff, and like aunties and things like that,” he said. “And I’m like, ‘Wow, do they see this as that too?’ If they do, you know, that’s really messed up. And it makes me sad.”

He stands by both the song and video and has reached a point where he feels the blame for the “chaos” surrounding him no longer belongs to him. 

As he sees it, many critics feel, “I’m this troll and I want to make these people mad. And so everybody can run with that. And there’s nothing I can do about that. I can say as many things as I want, but knowing my history, they look right, I look wrong.”

I disagree with the notion that he cannot do anything about the perceptions some have about him, but perhaps that’s something he will learn on his own in time.

In the meantime, for those who find him nothing more than an antagonistic troll and provocateur with some ill-conceived agenda to promote, I invite them to watch his other big release: a new Max documentary called Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero.

Co-directed by Carlos López Estrada and Zac Manuel, the film chronicles Lil Nas X’s life on tour and a complicated background that many queer people – especially those of us that are Black and queer with religious families – can relate to. In it, you’ll find more examples of his self-awareness, penchant for self-deprecation, and humor when he says things like, “You know, I was always a brat growing up.”

Still, when I watched the documentary, I found myself feeling relating to his personal and professional challenges as a Black queer creative trying to find peace in a world not all that welcoming to people like us.

I did not care for the “J Christ” song or video because it felt like a lot of noise with nothing to say, but I do know firsthand what it’s like to be challenged by wanting to maintain a sense of spirituality but challenged by all of the religious dogma that links queer existence to immediate damnation. 

And, as we learn in the film, Lil Nas X is correct in his assertion that his purpose is not to dunk on Christians and their beliefs. While he may have once given Satan a lap dance in past music videos, he is not the Satanist his more conspiratorial detractors portray him to be.  

“Starting when I turned 16 or something, I kind of abandoned religion altogether at first, and I was just like, ‘Oh my God. I don’t believe this. None of this is real,’” he recalled. “But when I started to do music, I can’t explain it, but I felt a presence bigger than me, and I was like, ‘I know for a fact that this is going to work.’”

Then there is his family, including his father, a gospel singer, who are also featured in the documentary.

Lil Nas X worries that his dad, stepmother, and brothers secretly disapprove of him but tolerate him, given he’s an “asset” financially.  It does not help that his brother says, “We used to have a love-hate relationship. As we grow, we start liking each other more. And then, boom, he got rich. Oh! There you go.”

Much of this helps better explain much of the content found on his debut album, Montero, which features him tackling the loneliness of growing up queer and the thoughts of suicidal ideation they help spur. 

Ultimately, my biggest takeaway from the film is that, like many artists, notably those as young as he is, he still needs to formulate the language to articulate his spiritual journey or how it informs his art best. 

“Saying actual words — it’s really hard to do,” Lil Nas X admits. 

He has a ways to go in terms of better explaining himself and how he feels, but for all his stunts in years past that have capitulated him to a level of celebrity generally unheard of for Black queer men in pop music, but the Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero does a good enough job highlighting that Lil Nas X is essentially a very young person on a spiritual journey who may not be handling it in the best way but is earnest in wanting to be liked and accepted.

I hope more people give him the benefit of the doubt, given how earnest he is in trying to figure it out.