Who is Brian Litrell, what has he said about LGBTQ+ people and is he a Trump supporter?
Brian Littrell of Backstreet Boys performs during Day 3 of the 2025 Stagecoach Festival on April 27, 2025 in Indio, California. (Photo by Timothy Norris/Getty Images for Stagecoach)
51-year-old Backstreet Boys member Brian Litrell has been making headlines recently, after a video of him appearing to confront a beachgoer in Florida and use a homophobic slur went viral.
The alleged incident took place on March 22 in Walton County, according to Just Jared and local news outlet WMBB.
The video, obtained by TMZ, shows Litrell approaching a man identified as Kyle Gallagher; the pair end up arguing and recording each other on their phones. In the clip, Litrell appears to say: “You want to be gay? Want to be a f*****?”
Litrell submitted the video to the police himself, after he tried to press battery charges against Gallagher. Prosecutors ultimately declined to move forward with charges due to a “lack of criminal intent”.
However, the incident has put Litrell back in the spotlight, a few years after it came to light that, in BuzzFeed’s words, he is a: “Trump-Supporting QAnon Believer.”
Who is Brian Litrell?
Before we do a deep dive into his politics, it’s probably a good idea to cover the basics, namely: Who is Brian Littrell, and how did he rise to fame?
90s kids will probably already know this, given the fact he used to be as a member of the Grammy-nominated boy band the Backstreet Boys, arguably one of the most successful pop groups of all time. The band formed in 1993 in Orlando, Florida. They rose to fame with their debut album, Backstreet Boys, which was released in 1996.
The group have continued to be active, and celebrated their 30th anniversary on April 20, 2023.
Is Brian Litrell a Trump supporter?
He is, and he apparently has particular faith in the president’s “balls”. In 2017, TMZ asked him if he thought Trump would be a good president. He replied: “I have faith in the system. I have faith in his character, his beliefs, and his balls. Let’s just put it that way.” He also said that Hollywood needed to better “respect” Trump, and added that he had wanted the Backstreet Boys to perform at Trump’s first inauguration ceremony in 2016.
Then, in 2021, BuzzFeed published an article explaining that Litrell had joined controversial social media network Parler, which was linked to the January 6 Capitol riots. The platform is widely used by far-right, MAGA supporters, and QAnon followers. At around the same time, fellow Backstreet Boys member Kevin Richardson tweeted about losing a friend to QAnon, which many people interpreted as being a reference to Litrell.
QAnon is a far-right conspiracy movement that began online in 2017, centred on anonymous posts by someone calling themselves “Q,” who claimed to have insider knowledge of a secret war within the US government.
It falsely alleges that Donald Trump was fighting a hidden cabal of powerful elites involved in crimes like child trafficking, and that a dramatic reckoning (“the Storm”) would expose and punish them.
In addition to these incidents, Littrell has also posted messages praising Trump directly, including statements like: “God bless you President Trump and your family.”
His right-leaning political stance has caused dismay to many Backstreet Boys fans, particularly those who are members of the LGBTQ+ community: the Backstreet Boys fanbase has always been female-led and LGBTQ+ inclusive. In January 2021, a petition appeared on Change.org calling for the removal of Littrell from the band driven by fan backlash regarding his support for Trump and his promotion of Parler.
Although there’s no record of him publicly using homophobic slurs in the past, or making any comments about the LGBTQ+ community as a whole, the “beach incident” is almost certainly going to further alienate queer fans.
