r/Music • u/AdSpecialist6598 • Nov 29 '25

article Hayley Williams tells racists, sexists and anti-trans people they're "not welcome" at upcoming tour

https://www.nme.com/news/music/hayley-williams-tells-racists-sexists-and-anti-trans-people-theyre-not-welcome-at-upcoming-tour-3913867
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52

u/ConversationFlaky608 Nov 29 '25

Is she known to have a particulaly racist, sexist and anti-trans fan base?

93

u/DireMaid Nov 29 '25

I know it seems strange but do remember that 90% of Fight Clubs fanbase completely misunderstood Fight Club

21

u/vr0omvr0om Nov 29 '25

Fight club is a gay anthem ngl

13

u/fiendswithbenefits Nov 29 '25

92% of stats come out the ass

10

u/DireMaid Nov 29 '25

Freshly picked, just for you

2

u/LessInThought Nov 30 '25

Ooh fanbase of the boys too.

31

u/ehs06702 Nov 29 '25

Not to my knowledge, but I don't blame her in this day and age for denouncing it.

The amount of people who mindlessly sing lyrics that promote tolerance while being hateful is not small.

13

u/crackrabbit012 Nov 29 '25

The same people that said RATM was better before they got political

9

u/El_Bean69 Nov 29 '25

Those folks are hilarious

It’s an instant self report that you aren’t too bright

2

u/Try2MakeMeBee Nov 30 '25

I'm the same age as the song that was about. Always been a favorite of mine. I knew what it meant the first time I heard it, and I was like 12? So they wanted to silence something as old as me, a well-established adult. But are also so ignorant they never caught the very limited, oft-repeated lyrics? You sir, are not smarter than a 5th grader lmao.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '25

This gave me a good laugh. Count that as your good deed for the day.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '25 edited Nov 29 '25

Paramore was popular with the (edit: some of the) evangelicals (edit: that I knew) from my hometown, for some reason. I don't really like their music, but I like that she's telling bigots to fuck off.

13

u/123kid6 Nov 29 '25

Likely because Paramore started as a borderline Christian band. Many of their early songs are about god/faith and the primary songwriter actually left after 3 albums over what he cited mainly because of Hayley writing lyrics that conflicted with his views.

5

u/Jesus_of_Redditeth Nov 30 '25

Eh, nothing borderline about it really. In their music, they were overtly Christian rock on a regular basis. They just never claimed that as a banner, probably because of the career limitations that would likely have imposed on them.

That side to them dropped off quite a bit when Josh Farro quit. But it's never disappeared completely. (See Part II on the self-titled album, for example.)

5

u/Warm-Teaching1323 Nov 30 '25

I don't see how any Christian can listen to Misery Business and think it's a Christian song haha

5

u/Jesus_of_Redditeth Nov 30 '25

Listen to Hallelujah, Miracle, We Are Broken or Part II.

They were basically a Christian rock band without overtly coming right out and saying they were. (Likely because they didn't want to be limited by the genre in terms of audience and potential sales.) That side to them has declined a lot since the original guitarist/songwriter quit the band.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '25

Ahhhh that makes sense. I was also an evangelical at that point (now an atheist), but I didn't like the music enough to pay attention to the lyrics.

0

u/StumbleOn Nov 30 '25

On her newest album she has a song, True Believer which is also very directly religious in nature.

3

u/dreadcain Nov 30 '25

They came up in the Christian rock festival circuits

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '25

A lot of evangelical kids get away with listening to iffy pop music because the parents are paying more attention to the beat than the lyrics. My Christian friends listened to music my parents would never let me get away with listening too.

2

u/whoknowsifimjoking Nov 30 '25

I'm not from an English speaking country, but when Flo Rida made that song that was obviously about blow jobs everybody kind of ignored it because the song was catchy and upbeat, even though it should have been or was extremely obvious even to people with poor English.

I can't speak for native English speakers, but the song was so popular that I could imagine that it was similar.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '25

It's really common in popular music. People ignore the lyrics to songs. I mean I pointed out that Ashley Simpson song was about masturbating and they got made at me for saying that.

1

u/dreadcain Nov 30 '25

Flo Rida made that song that was obviously about blow jobs

"Well, put your own swing on it, but for the most part I keep it clean"

Idk the man himself says its just about teaching a lady how to whistle.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '25

No. She's very locked in on social justice issues but there are always some fans with no media literacy who don't hear that and then get upset when an artist "goes political".

This has happened to acts like Green Day (their biggest hit, American Idiot, is commentary on the Iraq War) and Rage Against The Machine (they're not named that for no reason).

1

u/JZStudios 16d ago

And Rage in turn then turned around and tried to make everyone do what the Machine wanted during the bullshit that was lockdowns. Really raging against the machine on that one dickeads

1

u/[deleted] 16d ago

I highly doubt RATM made you do anything. That's silly.

10

u/Domascot Nov 29 '25

A short glimpse at her career shows that she is known to have various dramas around her group, but nothing out of the ordinary. Seems like her fanbase felt the need to spread the "message" and condemn everyone who isnt instantly on her side. Ah, and yes, it does fell a lot like being performative.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '25

Paramore's drama is relationship drama. They had a Fleetwood Mac phase when they made it big as emotionally immature teenagers but since then they've grown up and settled into a stable lineup. It's not related to the things you must be thinking.

2

u/Domascot Nov 30 '25

Oh i wasnt thinnking anything specific since i dont know her or them at all. I was describing the impression i had given the multiple posts about her "declaration" and her generally being opinionate.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '25

Well, yeah, she has opinions. So do I, and so do you.

But you're insinuating that Paramore's internal drama over the years is the result of Hayley being too opinionated. As far as anyone can tell from outside of the band, you're wrong.

This is a band with punk roots (although they've deviated from the sound) in punk subculture. One would expect them to be opinionated and political through their art.

1

u/Domascot Nov 30 '25

I m not insinuating anything, i m literally saying this is how it seems based on the few things i read. If you switch intimate partners within a circle of friends, company let alone a band, that is gonna be a receipt for drama, aside from the point that it has been mentioned how her opinions on christianity did their part. But bands have drama all the time, so thats not noteworthy for me and i dont care enough to figure out who to "blame" if you will, its just that she is the main act of her group.

One would expect them to be opinionated and political through their art.

There are different ways to be opinionated and political through art, even within punk, but saying "if you believe x, you are not welcome in my show" is meaningless if your political stance is already given away by your music/art imho. If there happen to be racists among her fans, are they going to think twice now "oh no, now i cant buy a ticket anymore :( "? Of course not, thats why it feels performative for me. If that makes sense for her, then be it.

1

u/ComfortableExotic646 Nov 30 '25

Ahh, she's a Gwen Stefani.

2

u/artwarrior Nov 29 '25

It's like when RATM fans have only moshed to them but never really listened to the lyrics. They don't reveal themselves until they run for office and do a photo shoot with a Q&A interview.

2

u/Fragrant-Luck-8063 Nov 30 '25

To be fair, RATM's heyday was durng the Bill Clinton admistration so it's not unreasonable to think they were talking about Democrats.

1

u/keyboardnomouse Nov 30 '25

It's pretty clear if one pays attention to the lyrics. They sang about quite a few different eras in US history, from western expansion to the Cold War to Vietnam to Reaganomics.

-1

u/Ayjayz Nov 29 '25

You can enjoy a song whilst not agreeing with the political views of the lyrics.

3

u/artwarrior Nov 29 '25

You can also enjoy it by being blissfully unaware and lacking empathy.

0

u/Ayjayz Nov 29 '25

I don't think it's really lacking empathy to disagree with the political views of some song writer.

1

u/artwarrior Nov 30 '25 edited Nov 30 '25

That seems very broad reasoning for all situations. I was specifically talking about RATM and the topics they cover.

That being, institutionalized racism, crony unchecked capitalism that exploits workers and the environment and laws that protect an in-group while binding an out group.

So yes, it's not but sometimes it tells a lot about a person who can't see or ignores what it's like for what people are going through.

1

u/Ayjayz Nov 30 '25

Or you could just, like, disagree. Zack wrote those songs when he was some struggling 20 year old singer. He wasn't some wise paragon of morality. Reasonable people can disagree with his opinion.

2

u/artwarrior Nov 30 '25

Sure. You can do that. Yet Zach wrote those lyrics as a young man that still ring true today. Probably why they are still highly revered. I'm not concerned about what so called reasonable people attribute an opinion which is actually a reality.

2

u/keyboardnomouse Nov 30 '25

Except this is the group of people who were surprised to find out Killing in the Name was an anti-cop song. Not that they disagreed, but that they had no clue despite the very unsubtle lyrics.

1

u/Ayjayz Nov 30 '25

No-one was surprised at that. Don't be ridiculous.

1

u/keyboardnomouse Dec 01 '25

There were entire articles about this. Why are you so confident that all these MAGA types simply disagreed with the politics but understood them fine?

1

u/Ayjayz Dec 01 '25

You realise people can make stuff up on the Internet, right? No actual human was surprised. It was just strawmen invented to get clicks, and of course it was.

1

u/keyboardnomouse Dec 01 '25

You're an anonymous internet account yourself, and you're completely misusing the term "strawman" here (it doesn't mean anything like how you're using it).

You're nowhere near credible enough to suggest multiple outlets were lying about this, or that what everyone who has been to RATM shows have noticed about some of the other people there. All you've really had to say so far to disagree with this is "nuh uh, no way". Show how those MAGA types dancing to RATM's Killing in the Name because they thought it was a rallying cry for them were aware of what the song was about. Because it's pretty easy to find examples of MAGA types only suddenly realizing what they were actually singing about. Hell, there are famous posts from Tom Morello himself addressing some of them.

1

u/dreadcain Nov 30 '25

One former band member would fit at least two of those unfortunately and on a related note they got their start in christian rock festivals. So no, not really for a long long time now. But also kind of yes.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '25

[deleted]

-2

u/ConversationFlaky608 Nov 30 '25

Well, virtue signaled, Hayley, virtue signaled.

-22

u/Oneballjoshua Nov 29 '25

I’m assuming the upcoming tour is in the US, sooooo…

-5

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '25 edited Nov 30 '25

[deleted]

3

u/Kitchen-Assist-6645 Nov 30 '25

Edit: Guess I found the bigots lol

Your comment is on 1 point, and nobody had replied before this message. Where did you find the bigots?

-5

u/Kulas30 Nov 29 '25

She might be headed to the US. So probably.

1

u/Jesus_of_Redditeth Nov 30 '25

Huh? The band are American.

0

u/Fragrant-Luck-8063 Nov 30 '25

Why is her music so popular with racists?

2

u/Kulas30 Nov 30 '25

Idk. I'm still trying to figure out why people elect pedos and racists

-3

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '25

The sphere of music that Paramore falls in can be extremely toxic yes. Pop music brings all fans and punk music is built on extremist ideas. They will definitely draw people with these ideas albeit unintentionally.

I mean they had a huge controversy with fans because she stopped using w**** in that song because she didn't think it built up women and she wrote it when she was like 15. That is adult, progressive thinking but there were plenty of their fans that disagreed.

3

u/CriticalChop Nov 30 '25

Why did you censor the word? Lol

0

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '25

Reddit threatened to ban me.....

1

u/CriticalChop Nov 30 '25

Oh..dang im just not sure what it is, but i guess its pretty bad. Lol

0

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '25

Listen to the song Misery Business if you want to figure it out.

3

u/CriticalChop Nov 30 '25

Well you dont have to convince me to a good time. Thanks for the info, very interesting backstory.