The controversial video of Kirk Franklin wearing a simple tank and denim shorts continues to haunt the gospel artist.
Franklin was a guest on Angie Martinez’s IRL podcast last week and brought up the viral outfit, which got mixed reactions. Last year, the 22-time Grammy winner performed in Kingston and danced in a manner that was suggestive to some churchgoers.
Around the same time, another clip surfaced that showed Franklin playfully “twerking” on gospel vocalist Jacky Clark Chisholm, and the former has since apologized for both moments.
“I had to go to Jamaica last year,” Franklin told Martinez in the video below. “And I had some shorts on and a tank top, and I got ridiculed.”
Franklin denied that he was wearing “booty shorts,” also jokingly disagreeing with Martinez calling the pants “hoochie daddy shorts.”
“It was just a regular look that I had on,” he continued. “I had some Travis Scotts on and I was doing a concert.”
Franklin added that the public’s fixation on his outfit became “fatiguing” and that “social media gives everybody that microphone.”
“It’s the necessary capital E word [evil] that you know we all are trying to maneuver with because it does a lot of good,” he said, adding that some are “weaponizing Christianity.”
“Humans, if not surrendered and not accountable, we have capacities
some of us to be evil,” Franklin continued. “And so it’s not social media that’s evil, it’s the individuals [whose] hearts are not pure and healed and whole and surrendered that use that as a tool of evil.”
At the 2025 BET Awards, host Kevin Hart made light of Franklin’s viral moments, warning the gospel artist not to twerk when accepting his Ultimate Icon Award around the 6:45 mark below.
“He be trying to blame it on the Lord. The Lord didn’t ask for that,” Hart joked.
