Latin music star Nicky Jam drops support over Trump after racist joke
Nicky Jam, a Latin pop music star, withdrew his support for Donald Trump during the presidential campaign in the USA. This decision came after a racist joke made by a comedian at Trump's New York campaign rally. As recently as September, he publicly expressed his intention to vote for him.
During Donald Trump's New York rally, stand-up comedian Tony Hinchcliffe performed and his racist joke about Puerto Rico caused great outrage. This comment could significantly impact the former U.S. president's campaign.
I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico - he said.
Numerous Puerto Rican stars, including Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, and global star Bad Bunny, have expressed their support for the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
Even Nicky Jam, a well-known Latin reggae artist who declared support for Trump in September, has now decided to support Harris. The artist's father is Puerto Rican, so he announced in an official recording posted on Instagram that he would not tolerate such behaviour. He also explained the reasons why he initially supported the Republicans.
The reason I supported Donald Trump was because I thought he was the best for the economy in the United States where a lot of Latinos live, a lot of immigrants who are suffering because of the economy - Nicky Jam said in the released recording.
In the later part of the published recording, Nicky Jam stated that he never expected Donald Trump and his supporters to be able to joke about Puerto Ricans during a public appearance and "speak poorly of his country."
I withdraw my support of Donald Trump. Puerto Rico should be respected - the singer stressed.
Within a few hours, his recording was viewed by over 2 million users. Interestingly, as recently as September, Nicky Jam appeared in Las Vegas during Donald Trump's appearance, wearing a hat with the former president's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again." "We need you. We need you back. We need you as president," Nicky Jam said at the time. Some artists later decided to remove joint tracks with the singer.
Trump's joke also outraged other artists from Puerto Rico. Popular rapper Don Omar stated the matter.
