Khalid Comes Out After Being Outed, Hugo D Almonte Responds

By Jennifer Zhan, a Vulture news blogger covering music, internet culture, and TV.

Singer-songwriter Khalid came out as gay in a series of tweets about his sexuality on Friday. “????️‍????!!! there yall go. next topic please lol,” he said in an initial post. “Wait hope Mr Khalid isn’t GEHHH!” someone replied, to which Khalid clarified, “I am! And that’s okay.” He then suggested that he wasn’t the first person to share this personal news. “I got outted [sic] and the world still continues to turn,” he tweeted. “Let’s get this straight (lmao) I am not ashamed of my sexuality! In reality it ain’t nobodies business! But I am okay with me ???? love yall.” In other tweets, he emphasized that he has not been “hiding” his identity. Khalid’s posts came after fellow singer Hugo D Almonte took to X with claims about an ex that he did not initially identify by name. In a since-deleted tweet, Almonte said he dated and broke up with a “dumb ass singer” who allegedly then falsely accused him of breaking into their home. Almonte then appeared to confirm who he was talking about by posting a since-deleted selfie with Khalid alongside the caption, “Bitch ass ???????? lied and said that I broke into his house cause I didn’t want him.” While Khalid did not specify who outed him, the internet seemed pretty sure that it was Almonte. (Singer and producer MNEK tweeted directly at Almonte to call him out for “loser Loser LOSER LOSER behaviour.”)

When asked for comment, Almonte defended himself in an email statement to Vulture. “[It’s] really funny how it works because my intentions was never to out someone who’s clearly been out already in the community in Los Angeles,” he wrote in part. “my intentions was to share my story and share how he tried to use his power to silence me because I simply ended our relationship, he was afraid of what I might say.” Almonte added that people have started to “belittle” his character and send him death threats. “all I’ve learned from this is never allow anyone to silence me, it’s crazy that these people said I was chasing clout, when I was holding onto this for five years, and I finally had enough,” he concluded. Almonte also tweeted and deleted a similar but longer Notes-app statement that doubled down and declared, “So if I had a chance to do it all over, I would do it again and again and again the same way.”