Kehlani Says She Received Death Threats Amid Public Support For Palestine

Kehlani says she received “highly organized” death threats at shows amid her outspoken support of Palestine. In an interview with The Breakfast Club that aired on Monday (Dec. 8), the 2026 Grammys nominee pointed to the recent success of her track “Folded” as a sign of encouragement for other artists who may feel compelled to speak out on issues important to them. “If we have the courage to do things and then we see people have success after doing the things that we deem ‘scary,’ we might be more courageous to do them,” she said, as seen below. “I think it’s important that other artists see that I’ve been able to thrive after all those things happen. I mean, there’s still things that I will never be allowed to do or things that are not getting picked up.” As Kehlani sees it, retaliatory efforts targeting her for her public support of Palestine will likely persist “forever,” though the upside to her recent “Folded” success is that it proves an artist “can’t really be taken out in that way” when their work remains great.When asked how she feels about other artists not being outspoken, Kehlani revealed the extent of the pushback she received for her own comments. Notably, in November of last year, Kehlani expressed her loss of respect for certain peers due to their silence, particularly those who were asking for collaborations. "It’s fuck Israel, and it’s fuck Zionism, and it’s also fuck a lot of y’all, too,” she said at the time Kehlani reflected on the “really bad paranoia” she experienced at the height of the pushback against her outspokenness. “It got into my safety, my family dynamics, my friendships,” she said. “I had to move. It put me into a really bad paranoia every time I left the house of, ‘Was everybody out to get me?’ and ‘Did I need security to sit in front of my house?’ and ‘Was anybody plotting on me?’ And the death threats I got at my shows, like highly organized, typed-out, detailed death threats.” Such threats likely wouldn’t be as prevalent, Kehlani added, if people were speaking out en masse. “I think if we all spoke in numbers and there was so many of us, it wouldn’t be so easy to just come after one person,” she said. “I think when you leave it to be one or two people, it’s easy to just get them out of here. We’ve seen it historically. But if it’s a lot of people, who can they get?”

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