Tommy Richman to Streamer Asking Him to Sing "Million Dollar Baby": 'What Am I, a Dancing Monkey?'

Tommy Richman didn't seem interested in being on camera while in the studio.

Tommy Richman in a dark jacket, cap, and sunglasses poses with peace signs in a dimly lit room with red and orange lights.
Image via Getty/Christopher Polk/Billboard

Tommy Richman is at the center of an X debate after his response to streamer DLOU asking him to sing “Million Dollar Baby” on the spot.

In a clip from DLOU's Twitch stream earlier this week, Richman, who recruited Sexyy Red for an “Actin Up” remix back in April, is seen being asked to sing his 2024 megahit on command. Naturally, he declines to do so.

“I ain’t singing that shit, bro,” he says in response. For context, the stream in question saw DLOU in the studio for several hours, with Richman and a number of other familiar faces making appearances along the way. As DLOU continued to push for some “Million Dollar Baby,” seemingly in a trolling or trolling-adjacent fashion, Richman doubled and tripled down on his understandable refusal to do so.

“What am I, a dancing monkey?” he asked at one point. “I’m not singing that shit. I don’t even know you bro.”

After a bit more back and forth, Richman called for “some respect” to be shown, as the two did not know each other.

“I’m not singing shit,” he said. “So chill out, bro. Have some respect. Have some respect, bro. I just met you, bro. You’re telling me to sing a song. Talk to me like a real man. I don’t give a fuck about this streaming shit, bro. Talk to me like a real man.”

Seconds later, he told DLOU to “get your camera off me” and urged him not to “be weird.”

As of this writing, neither DLOU nor Tommy Richman responded to the clip making the rounds, either to elaborate further or offer some sort of clarity. While some were quick to criticize Richman’s response, others were just as quick to defend him, arguing that no artist should be expected to simply launch into a song because someone told them to, regardless of the context of the situation. It's also not clear whether the moment was entirely genuine.

“Million Dollar Baby” ultimately went down as one of the biggest TikTok songs of last year, joining other ubiquitous tracks like Ye and Ty Dolla Sign’s “Carnival” and GloRilla’s “TGIF.” Richman opted to not include the song on his debut album, Coyote, telling Complex’s Eric Skelton in November that he “wasn’t thinking about it from a logistics label standpoint.”

Instead of delivering a full-length more akin to “a playlist,” Richman said at the time, he was aiming for “a vinyl record” that tapped into his “real art side.”

Revisit the full Tommy Richman interview here.