Country singer Shane McAnally responded on Friday to a wave of backlash directed at him over a video he’d posted to Instagram. In the video, his five-month-old called out for “mama” — and he laughed as he informed the baby that he had two dads and no mama.
“We found it hilarious,” McAnally said of the video. “He’s five months old, he obviously doesn’t understand English.”
“Babies usually say dada first, but people wouldn’t then say the babies are only wanting their dads? It doesn’t really make sense,” he added.
The musician also complained that the whole thing had been taken “out of context,” saying that he was “appalled” by some of the comments he’d seen.
McAnally did not explain what “context” he believed critics were missing, but a number of them pointed out the fact that it was not the first time McAnally had set the baby up as a social media punchline: a video posted in December of 2025 showed the same baby, all smiles as dad (off-camera) talked about his siblings and pets — and then suddenly appeared concerned at the mention of “two dads.” The video, still pinned to McAnally’s Instagram page, is titled “6 week old homophobic baby.”
The country singer has been dabbling in stand-up comedy recently, but the “homophobic baby” got more backlash than laughs.
“He may say — oh it’s just a joke. But mothers don’t joke about their children this way. Frankly, no father I know does either. It’s like making a joke about your kid dying and it shows a tragic absence of familial connection. This baby is a fetish for them. God help this child,” Kira Davis posted.
“This is not the first time Tony winning musician Shane McAnally has made a joke out of his son’s instinctive desire for his mother, rather than two fathers. Children deserve better than this,” Concerned Women for America added.
The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles called it “the most horrifying video I’ve ever seen in my life.”
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