LSU Basketball Star Mocks 9/11 in New Song, Deletes After Getting Backlash
A member of LSU’s women’s basketball team mocked the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in a rap video she posted on YouTube — which has since been deleted.
The school’s website describes freshman Flau’jae Johnson of Savannah, Georgia, as a “dynamic guard” who was the country’s overall 26th-ranked player coming out of high school.
Johnson must have been feeling dynamic when she wrote and recorded a rap song and then shot a music video for it for social media.
But in the song, the basketball star compared the smoke from the exhaust of her Porsche 911 to the plumes of smoke that billowed out of the twin towers in New York City almost 22 years ago.
The SEC’s freshman of the year wasn’t born yet on that horrific September day when millions of Americans watched helplessly as almost 3,000 people died on national television.
But a lot of people who were around then heard her rap track and rightly slammed her for it.
The song, called “Clickbait,” was dropped on YouTube, and it attracted a lot of attention for a line in the first minute of the song.
Johnson said on the track, “In this 911, blowing smoke just like them towers.”
The video was taken down after Johnson was skewered over the line, but one Twitter user posted a clip of the offensive music video.
The internet is forever.
“In this 911 blowing smoke just like those towers.” – Flau’jae Johnson.
Take a bow @LSUwbkb. A player on your team mocked those who died on 9/11 by comparing it to a Porsche.
Disgusting. I know people who still struggle to sleep at night because of what they did in war after… pic.twitter.com/AFmw2zK6mf
— David Hookstead (@dhookstead) May 9, 2023
Johnson has been a pretty big beneficiary of name, image, and likeness deals since her team won the national championship last month, and she also has a record contract through rapper Jay-Z.
She’s riding high, but why she chose to cite the most horrific event to ever occur on this country’s soil is a mystery.
Perhaps the 19-year-old is experiencing a feeling right now that is unfamiliar to her given all her recent life success: humility.
LSU issued a statement to Outkick about the controversial song.
“We spoke with Flau’jae this evening, and while she never intended to offend or upset anyone with her lyrics, she expressed sincere remorse for any possibility of a misunderstanding and immediately took the video down. We will learn and grow from this experience together,” a school representative told the outlet.
Johnson was not born until more than two years after the attack on the country, and it isn’t clear what if anything she was taught about the event in school.
Sadly, she grew up in a world where 9/11 is often portrayed as either a punchline or a hoax by a cynical and nihilistic social media culture.
She has not commented on the deleted music video or her rationale behind recording it, but she did post on her Instagram story on Tuesday that she had gotten a 94 on a math test.
It’s apparent Johnson has plenty of room to grow up, and we can only hope she does so.
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