Pride 2021: Elton John, Demi Lovato To Host YouTube Parties
Pride 2021 may be another event affected by the global pandemic, but that won’t stop the party. YouTube Originals will be hosting YouTube Pride 2021: You Are Everything — a global Pride celebration in support of the LGBTQ+ community. Featuring Elton John & David Furnish, Demi Lovato, Trixie Mattel, Daniel Howell, Olly Alexander, and other icons, this virtual pride celebration will boast five hours of music, drag, dance, fun and plenty more on 25 June, starting at 8pm BST.
And it’s all for a good cause – viewers will be encouraged to donate towards a number of organisations that support the LGBTQ+ community. Firstly, The Trevor Project, which is the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people. YouTube Pride 2021 also supports akt, an oragnisation helping lgbtq+ young people aged 16-25 in the UK who are facing or experiencing homelessness or living in a hostile environment. The event will also be encouraging donations to the Elton John AIDS Foundation, a non-profit organisation which funds local experts across four continents to challenge discrimination, prevent infections, provide treatment as well as influencing governments to end AIDS for the most vulnerable people including the LGBTQ community, drug users and young people.
Elton John was recently among the signatories of an open letter warning the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnston, of the impact that the pandemic has had on HIV and AIDS research and treatment and urging Johnson to bring the matter to the attention of world leaders at the G7 summit. The activists called on Johnson and other global leaders to “fully resource” the G7 commitment to ending HIV by 2030, and reverse the “deeply unsettling” funding cuts to UNAIDS announced by Johnson last month, insisting: “These cuts not only directly hamper the worldwide fight against AIDS, putting 38 million people living with HIV at risk; they also damage the UK’s reputation. “We cannot let one pandemic crisis open up another,” they wrote. “We must end COVID-19, and AIDS, everywhere, together… The eyes of the world, Prime Minister, are on the UK, and on you.”