Camilo is setting the record straight about the rumors of raising his child Índigo as non-binary. On Saturday (Jan. 28), the Colombian pop star denied the reports while expressing his support for the LGBTQ+ community.
Camilo became a father in April 2022 when his wife Evaluna Montaner had their daughter Índigo. In Oct. 2021, before the birth of Índigo, Camilo used “hije” to describe her in an interview, because neither he nor Evaluna had known the gender of their baby at the time. That interview of Camilo using inclusive and gender-neutral language resurfaced and fueled recent reports that the couple was raising Índigo as non-binary.
Non-binary is when a person doesn’t ascribe to the binary of being a man or a woman. Sam Smith, who uses they/them pronouns, is one of the world’s most famous non-binary musicians. In his Instagram stories, Camilo responded to the reports about Índigo. “Several days ago we have been receiving a flurry of questions and intensity from the media and especially from gossip shows about alleged news claiming that we had decided that our daughter would be recognized as non-binary,” Camilo wrote. “We deeply respect the people who make this decision, but it is not our case. They took some videos of interviews where we referred to Índigo in a neutral way out of context because until the day she was born, we never knew her sex because we never did an ultrasound.”
While squashing that rumor, Camilo also took a moment to stand up for the LGBTQ+ community. Because of the intense hate that he and Evaluna were receiving from people thinking they were raising a non-binary baby, he said he could put himself in the shoes of queer people who are sadly judged and harassed for the way they present themselves to the world. “We began to think about how people from the LGBTQ+ community might feel, for example, in the face of a world that points at them, judging them, with fingers pointing and condemning them,” Camilo wrote. “Imagine how intense and complex it can be for a person going through such a process to recognize who they are, and finding themselves with a society full of stones in their hands waiting for the first sign to throw them.”
Camilo ended his statement on a positive note. “We believe and strive to create a world and a future where we create more ways to love each other, recognize each other, respect each other, and embrace each other with our differences,” he wrote.
Camilo has an ode to Índigo that he sang with Evaluna on his latest album De Adentro Pa Afuera, released last year.