Erick Sermon(EPMD) has spoken on past speculation about his sexuality.

Sharing his reaction to the gossip, Sermon explained why his name was mentioned as a possible homosexual rapper in recent years.

“My friends would be like, ‘Yo Erick, why don’t you go tell ’em about X, Y and Z,'” Sermon explained in an interview. “But I figured who knew me too, not trying to big up myself, but there’s not one chick in New York that can say, ‘Yeah, I talked to Erick’ or ‘I was with Sermon’ no matter how bad they was — either I was with ’em or my boys was with ’em. So I would think nobody would believe that neither. Not from the type of action that we was involved in. Don’t forget, back then there wasn’t that many famous people like it is now… I was massive.? I was doing whatever at the time.? When they heard that, it started getting out of hand because it started doing more than me. Six, seven rappers and nine rappers and then you start hearing more names and I start thinking, listen, this is [Wendy’s] gimmick. That’s what made her famous.? People took to that.? It’s all hatred.? I never got one person in the street came to me and ask me that question.? My name just stuck out at the time because I was it.? Nobody really believed that.” (Hip Hop Gossip Site)