A YEAR OF CELEBRITY APOLOGIES
Famous people get in trouble every year, but 2020 was something else
2020 was not a great year for celebrities.
The combination of a deadly global pandemic, racial reckoning and a devastating economic crisis meant that people had less patience for famous rich person nonsense. No, Gal Gadot, gathering a bunch of off-key stars to sing “Imagine” from their palatial estates did not give us hope. No, Madonna, the pandemic was not the “great equalizer,” and also why did you say that while sitting in your bathtub? Don’t even get us started on the Kardashians and how grateful they were to pretend things were “normal” as they jetted off to a private island for Kim’s 40th birthday.
As a result, even more so than in years past, stars had plenty to atone for — some for things that happened this year, and others who expressed regret for mistakes they made in the past. Here are some celebrity apologies that only begin to capture the strange, bleak year that was 2020.
Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel
The late-night Jimmys were just two of the stars who came under fire for using blackface in comedy sketches — a racist practice that has long been criticized, but Hollywood tended to gloss over until this year. In the wake of protests about racial injustice after George Floyd’s death in police custody this summer, multiple TV shows (“30 Rock,” “Scrubs,” “Golden Girls”) edited episodes to remove characters in blackface, and celebrities offered apologies for their past complicity.
Fallon, who used blackface while doing an impression of Chris Rock on “Saturday Night Live,” said that at first he was advised to just stay quiet. “I realized that I can’t not say I’m horrified, and I’m sorry and I’m embarrassed,” Fallon said during a “Tonight Show” monologue in June. “I realized that the silence is the biggest crime that White guys like me and the rest of us are doing, staying silent. We need to say something.” A few weeks later, Kimmel said he regretted impersonating NBA star Karl Malone in the mid-’90s. In a statement, Kimmel said he was
“reluctant to address” the issue because he was afraid his apology would be weaponized by critics, but “there is nothing more important to me than your respect, and I apologize to those who were genuinely hurt or offended by the makeup I wore or the words I spoke.”
Hannah Brown
Some celebrities were somehow apparently shocked to find out that there were consequences for racist language. In May, former Bachelorette and “Dancing With the Stars” winner Hannah Brown sang DaBaby’s “Rockstar” on Instagram Live, including a lyric with the n-word. “I did? I’m so sorry,” she said, smiling and laughing when fans called her out. Her (multiple) apologies became much more grave as she realized the extent of the backlash: “I am terribly sorry, and know that whether in public or private, this language is unacceptable. I promise to do better.”
Terry Crews
This year, there were plenty of discussions about colleagues supporting each other when speaking up about discrimination in the workplace, and Hollywood
was no exception. In January, Terry Crews was asked on the “Today” show about Gabrielle Union’s allegations of racism and a toxic work environment on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent,” where she previously served as a judge and he remains as host. Crews defended the show, saying it was one of the most diverse places he ever worked, but later faced intense criticism for dismissing Union’s experiences. He soon apologized, and did so again in August when Union went on a podcast and expressed disappointment in his comments. “This will be my 3rd public apology to Gabrielle Union,” Crews tweeted. “If a 4th is needed, I will continue to apologize and push for reconciliation between the world, and more importantly, the culture I grew up in.”
Jeff Lewis
Before the coronavirus pandemic upended American life, the deadly virus originated in China — which inspired some celebrities, including Bravo star and radio host Jeff Lewis to make some “jokes.” On his radio show, he and his cohosts laughed about ways to avoid the virus, such as not eating at Panda Express and quarantining Asian employees together. Unsurprisingly, some listeners were furious, and Lewis responded with an apology, saying they were joking and never meant to “spread hate or breed racism”: “I want people to have fun when they listen to this show. ... So I just wanted to apologize. I’m very sorry for crossing the line.”
Vanessa Hudgens
In perhaps the earliest example of tone-deafness among celebrities in the pandemic, actress Vanessa Hudgens shrugged off its seriousness during an Instagram Live video in March: “It’s a virus, I get it, I respect it. But at the same time, even if everybody gets it, yeah, people are going to die, which is terrible — but inevitable?” Respect for the virus aside, fans were appalled, and Hudgens initially went with the timehonored “taken out of context” excuse. Later, she elaborated: “I’m so sorry for the way I have offended anyone and everyone who has seen the clip from my Instagram live yesterday. I realize my words were insensitive and not at all appropriate for our country and the world (we) are in right now.”
Cardi B
As many Americans settled in for a long, lonely pandemic winter, struggling with the fact that they wouldn’t be able to visit family for the holidays, some stars took a ... different approach. “12 kids and 25 adults over the holidays. It was lit!!” rapper Cardi B tweeted to her nearly 16 million followers a few days after Thanksgiving. After seeing criticism from fans who pointed out that maybe hosting 37 people in a pandemic wasn’t a great idea, she apologized and said she wasn’t trying to offend anyone. “Sorry my bad wasn’t trying to make nobody feel bad,” she tweeted. “I just had my family in my home for the first time and it felt so good & uplifted me. I spent soo much money getting every1 tested but it felt worth it.”
This year, more longcirculating rumors about A-listers spilled out in the open — such as the public discussion about how Ellen DeGeneres, famous for promoting kindness, was possibly not-so-nice behind the scenes. It culminated with a pair of BuzzFeed articles that alleged a toxic work environment on her set, including allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct by producers. After an internal investigation, three top producers were fired and DeGeneres publicly apologized: “I learned that things happened here that never should have happened,” she said on the show’s season premiere in September. “I take that very seriously, and I want to say I am so sorry to the people who are affected.”