Contrite Bee back on the air

Comedian Samantha Bee is back on the US airwaves, apologetic but angry.

She was sorry for using a crude epithet to describe Ivanka Trump but annoyed that the ensuing controversy distracted from more important issues.

President Donald Trump had called for her to be fired for what she said on last week’s episode of Full Frontal, but TBS accepted her apology.

Bee said she hated to “contribute to the nightmare of 24-hour news cycles that we’re all white-knuckling through”.

“I should have known that a potty-mouthed insult would be inherently more interesting . . . than this juvenile immigration policy,” she said.

Bee had described Ivanka Trump with a vulgar term in an attempt to encourage her to speak to her father about changing a policy where children of people entering the country illegally are being detained.

To drive her point home, Bee finished her monologue and went directly into another segment about immigration, knowing that she would have a curious audience tuning in to see her reaction.

Cameras showed four dourlooking men dressed in suits with their hands on red buttons, whom she introduced as her show’s new censors.

The former cast member on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart now has one of TBS’ most popular shows.

After Bee apologised last week, TBS said the network was also at fault for letting the word through. Full Frontal does not air live, so the network has time to edit it.