NEWS
Joe Budden has never been the type to shy away from making people react online. The rapper turned podcaster sparked another round of conversation this weekend while he and the JBP crew talked about Megan Thee Stallion. During her defamation trial involving blogger Milagro Gramz, a Roc Nation staff member revealed that Megan once received an opportunity from the Call Of Duty video game franchise.
After she discovered she would be presented as a character players could shoot at, she turned the offer down. "That triggered her and she full stop said ‘I’m not doing this," Senior VP of Branding and Strategic Partnerships at Roc Nation Daniel Kinney explained.
Joe Budden and the rest of the team agreed that Megan had every reason to make that choice. The conversation shifted, however, once Joe added his own thought. "I do not even play Call Of Duty, I would have bought it off the strength."
Many people viewed that remark as an inappropriate joke tied to a serious situation. Those critics assumed Joe was suggesting he would purchase the game because it might allow players to shoot or "kill" Megan. For nearly a full day, he did not offer any follow up to clear up what he meant.
A recently surfaced audio clip from the JBTV After Hours show finally gives some clarity from Budden himself.
In the audio, Joe admits that his timing was "ill timed" and makes it clear that he is not attempting to defend the remark. He also explains that he did not say it for the purpose of cracking a joke.
His reasoning was the following: "If one of the number one games is trying to put you in as a shootable character, then that must have had data that says that will get a causal fan to the store, just for that reason."
He adds more context by saying, "So, I said as someone who does not play the game, I would go get the game. Again, maybe ill timed, but it was not so jokey jokey."
People are still pushing back on his comments, stating that he is simply trying to talk his way around what he said and that he did not truly mean any of this. As he also mentions in the clip, "There are a lot of agendas being pushed, none of them being mine."
In the end, listeners can either accept his explanation or dismiss it and disagree.
Megan's trial began on Thursday, November 20, in a Miami federal courtroom. She took the stand for roughly two hours that day, defending her belief that Milagro Gramz "created a space for a lot of people to come speak negatively about me." On Friday, November 21, Gramz' legal team cross examined her and challenged the strength of her claims.
Lizzo has responded to fat-shamers online.
The Grammy-winning artist went on her official Instagram page to call out people making jokes about her body.
“Today I came across a fat joke about me in 2025 and it was going viral,” she wrote alongside a photo of herself relaxing in a yellow and black snakeskin bikini.
“It was a silly joke and they were laughing at me simply because I’m fat. Let me remind everyone to never let anyone make you feel bad for what you decide to do with your own body. When you are bigger, they talk st. When you are smaller, they talk st. Your body will never be enough for them because it is not meant for them. It is meant for you.”
The About Damn Time singer has faced body-shaming comments throughout her entire mainstream pop career.
Earlier this year, during an appearance on the Just Trish podcast, Lizzo shared that she tried Ozempic but eventually chose to focus on changing her diet as part of her personal weight loss journey.
“If I get a BBL, mind ur business. If I lose 100lbs, mind ur business. If I gain every pound back and then some, mind ur f**king business,” she wrote at the end of her caption.
“Anyways, my fat ass stays living with a paid-off mortgage in y’all b**ches heads.”
Lizzo’s message to her critics comes shortly after she drew attention for a Substack essay she posted titled Cancel Me (Again): A ‘Cancelled’ Woman’s Take on Why Everyone Should Get Cancelled at Least Once.
“Not everybody liked my most recent essay and that is exactly why I wrote it,” she said in a follow up post.
“I deserve the freedom to express myself like anyone else. I am human and I have earned the right to be wrong, to be prickly and even unlikable sometimes. It feels freeing for someone like me who used to be a chronic people pleaser. Thank you for the comments and the criticism. I welcome all of it.”
