Lil Nas X has revealed he has been taken to hospital after suffering partial facial paralysis due to a mystery illness.
The rapper, 26, is known for his huge 2018 hit, “Old Town Road”, which became the longest-running song to sit at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 list since the chart’s 1958 inception.
Lil Nas – real name Montero Lamar Hill – shared a video from his hospital bed, wearing a Von Dutch baseball cap and patient gown.
He told his 10.4 million Instagram followers: “This is me doing a full smile right now by the way.
“It's like, what the f***? Bro, I can't even laugh right now, bro. What the f***? Ah! Oh my God!” he added in confusion.
Hours later, the rapper shared another video of his face, saying: “We normal over here. We get crazy over here,” adding the caption: “I'm so cooked.”
In another post, Lil Nas told fans not to worry about him. “Guys I am OK!! Stop being sad for me!” he said. “Shake ur a** for me instead!”
He reassured his followers: “Imma look funny for a lil bit but that's it.”
It comes after the rapper told People Magazine that his forthcoming new album, Days Before Dreamboy, is about embracing his most authentic self in the next stage of his career.
“I wanna be myself more than ever this era. I want to be completely free out there, only doing the things that I wanna do,” he said.
“If I do not want to do it, I'm not doing it... If I don’t want be there, I’m not gonna be there.”
Back in 2022, Lil Nas claimed the music industry tries to “sanitise” music from LGBTQ+ artists by telling them to “be gay without being gay”.
The rapper came out as gay on the last day of Pride Month (30 June) in 2019.
Noting that he’s “definitely more out there” about his sexual identity than other openly gay artists, Lil Nas said the industry sometimes restricts freedom of expression of its LGBTQ+ talent.
He explained: “It’s always been, ‘Okay, if you’re gay, this needs to be sanitised. Let’s not include anything sexual.’
“It’s like, ‘Be gay without being gay,” he continued. “‘We don’t wanna know what happens behind closed doors’, or ‘we don’t want you to express that.’”
Addressing why coming out after the success of “Old Town Road” felt like the “most authentic” time to go public, Lil Nas previously said: “I’m not doing it for attention. I’m already like the number one artist in the world right now.”
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