Pharrell Williams agreed “there’s no room” for intolerance in the wake of his colleague Kim Burrell’s shocking sermon slamming homosexuals as perverts.
The singer and producer discussed Burrell’s troublesome words in a new interview with Ellen DeGeneres, who opted to cancel Burrell’s appearance on her talk show after video of the sermon came to light.
“There’s no space, there’s no room for any kind of prejudice in 2017 and moving on,” Pharrell says in a clip airing Thursday on “Ellen.” “There’s no room. She’s a fantastic singer, I love her, just like I love everybody else, and we all got to get used to that.”
“We all have to get used to everyone’s differences and understand that this is a big, gigantic, beautiful, colorful world and it only works with inclusion and empathy,” he continued. “It only works that way.”
Burrell — who sings with Pharrell in a song for his new movie “Hidden Figures” — was caught on a video that surfaced last week preaching about “the perverted homosexual spirit” at the Love & Liberty Fellowship Church in Houston.
“You as a man, you open your mouth and take a man’s penis in your face, you are perverted,” she said, adding,” You are a woman and will shake your face in another woman’s breast, you are perverted.”
She later defended her comments in a Facebook Live video.
DeGeneres, who is married to Portia de Rossi, stepped forward on Twitter shortly after to announce she would not be having Burrell on the show.
She expanded on that decision during her conversation with Pharrell.
“As someone who has received a lot of hate and prejudice and discrimination because of who I choose to love, I just don’t understand anyone who has experienced that kind of oppression or anything like that … it only gives me more compassion,” she said. “It gives me more empathy. I don’t ever want anyone to feel hurt because they are different.”
Pharrell’s entire interview airs on Thursday’s episode of “Ellen,” which begins at 3 p.m. in New York.
