Elon Musk's ex Grimes made a claim about her sexual identity that has caused controversy online.
The 36-year-old Canadian musician dated Musk in 2018 and had three children, X Æ A-Xii, Exa Dark Sideræl, and Techno Mechanicus, and recently claimed she became "way less gay" after her three pregnancies.
On Tuesday, October 22, Grimes took to X (formerly Twitter) and wrote:
"I became way less gay after I was pregnant, my ability to focus on reading and writing went way up, as did my general creativity, but my ability to focus on technical things went *way* down."
She then asked if everything she was experiencing could be "explained by hormones."
The declaration threw social media users, since they were never aware of her LGBTQ+ status to begin with.
One user asked, "wait wdym [what do you mean] by being less gay??"
She replied she was "Just less interested in dating girls."
Although Grimes has never officially revealed her sexuality, she has been more vocal about her gender.
In 2018, she wrote on X, "I vibe in a gender-neutral space so I'm kinda impartial to pronouns."
She also said she was "personally put off by the word ‘woman’ at least as far as my self id."
And in a 2021 post, Grimes stated that she was "Female-ish - Caitlyn and vi in the brothel in arcane."
Confused users continued weighing in after her "less gay" announcement.
Several users commented that the shift she felt was likely due to progesterone, the pregnancy hormone in women that also plays a role in the menstrual cycle.
It's worth noting that menopause and hormonal imbalance due to high levels of progesterone have been known to have a negative impact on sex drive, not sexuality.
Another user shared her personal experience to counter Grimes' experience.
“I don’t think that’s how that works," they wrote, adding, "I’m bisexual which I thought went away over time because my focus was men and men alone. After I did more digging around I realized that I never was heterosexual."
"Pregnancy can create same sex dreams but I don’t think it can change your sexual orientation.”
People continued theorizing.
One user observed:
"No I think that’s just from being in a heterosexual relationships with a bigot bae."
Grimes replied that dating a certain transphobic SpaceX founder should've made her become "more gay."
Musk has 12 children from three women, Canadian author Justine Wilson, Grimes, and tech exec Shivon Zilis.
The first child he had with Wilson died from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in 2002.
Wilson is the mother of Musk's estranged trans daughter, who legally changed her name in 2022 to Vivian Jenna Wilson when she was 18. She legally declared her gender identity owing to " ...the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”
Musk has repeatedly deadnamed Wilson during interviews and stated that his trans child was "dead" to him and that she was "killed by the woke mind virus."
His transphobia was further evidenced last year when he said he was “actively lobbying to criminalize” gender-affirming care for trans youth.
After Musk acquired Twitter and renamed it X, the platform revoked a part of its hate speech policy that protected trans people from online abuse, including "misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”
