Within a few days, the scene was edited out of the video on YouTube and Apple Music. Director Mary Lambert still stands by the video saying, “Why not a Black Jesus? Why can’t you imagine kissing him? I wanted to speak about ecstasy and show the relationship between sexual and religious ecstasy. I think that subconsciously a lot of people understood this and were either enthralled or outraged by it.” Obviously, it’s pretty confronting material and was heavily censored when aired on TV by MTV and Fuse. But the legacy of the song still lives on. Nowadays, we use “stan” to describe an obsessive fan. A Vice review called it “horrible, misogynistic bullshit” adding “the level of stupidity and arrogance required in order for a video this banal, offensive and unimaginative is almost impressive.” Lil Nas replied on Twitter: “There is a mass shooting every week that our government does nothing to stop. Me sliding down a CGI pole isn’t what’s destroying society.” Entertainment Weekly described her as “the world’s skeeziest reptile woman,” while Time wrote that she looked like she came “direct from an intergalactic hooker convention." However, over time, we came to love it: in 2018, Billboard put “Dirrty” on their list of most iconic music videos of the century, calling it “ahead of its time.” It was banned in 11 countries and age-restricted on YouTube — Rihanna responded by making the full video available on her website to be watched anywhere. None of these celebs consented to have their likenesses in the video, and people especially were outraged by Kanye’s choice to put “Rihanna” next to “Chris Brown.” Things got worse when the video clip was released, which was directed by Terry Richardson — who has also been accused of sexual misconduct. One scene in the video shows Gaga as a sleeping patient lying on a table, with R. Kelly dressed as a doctor reaching under the sheet covering her. Pitchfork described the video as “Kelly hosting a softcore orgy with Gaga’s anesthetized body.” Gaga removed the single from streaming platforms in 2019 after the documentary Surviving R. Kelly was released. “If I could go back and have a talk with my younger self I’d tell her to go through the therapy I have since then, so that I could understand the confused post-traumatic state that I was in,” Gaga wrote about her choices when making this song and video. The video was banned from YouTube, before getting reposted with a disclaimer. M.I.A. responded to the backlash by saying: “I find the new Justin Bieber video more violent and more of an assault to my eyes and senses than what I’ve made.” Sia apologized on Twitter: “I anticipated some ‘pedophelia!!!’ cries for this video. I apologize to those who feel triggered by ‘Elastic Heart’. My intention was to create some emotional content, not to upset anybody.” Though it was censored in Russia and banned in the UK, a number of publications listed it as one of the sexiest music videos of all time, which caused controversy in itself as both girls were 15 at the time.
