You can check out the tweets (including some backlash and Liam’s response) above. From MTV:
Those of you who didn’t spend your Saturday evening obsessively refreshing Twitter might be interested to know what the heck is going on right now: Liam Payne, 20 percent of boy band One Direction (maybe you’ve heard of them), is having a really eventful night, 140 characters at a time.
Payne tweeted at beleaguered “Duck Dynasty” star Willie Robertson, saying, “huge love to you/your family huge respect for your business prosperities and the family values you still all behold. big fan.”
Of course, Robertson is the brother of Phil Robertson who also appears on “Duck Dynasty.” Phil Robertson recently expressed homophobic opinions in an interview with GQ Magazine, calling homosexuality a “sin” and “not logical,” then relating it to bestiality and promiscuity. After public outcry, Phil Robertson was briefly suspended from the show by A&E.
An hour and a half later, after a barrage of tweets directed at him, Payne clarified: “Being a fan of someones show and the way they still hold a family together doesnt mean i am ok with all they say.”
Payne, however, never explicitly said which parts of the Robertsons’ views he did or did not disagree with, and never tweeted a statement expressly in support of equality. The farthest he went was to say, in a response to a fan, was that “people can love who they want , its none of my business.”
He instead took the opportunity to have a mini fan Q&A, sharing his views on cheesecake (pro), “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (pro) and dentistry (anti, it’s scary). He also broke the news that he’s thinking about more tattoos, and said that the outcry about his tweet at Robertson was “just ruining twitter for [him].”
Eventually, Payne made his exit without referencing the night’s events again, merely saying, “Im off ! Love you all :)”
