Comic sorry for a slur made against Ivanka
NEW YORK » Comedian Samantha Bee apologized to Ivanka Trump and viewers on Thursday for using an obscenity to describe the president’s daughter, an incident that quickly thrust her into the middle of the nation’s political divide.
Her network, TBS, also said it was “our mistake, too,” in allowing the language on Bee’s show, “Full Frontal,” on Wednesday. Her show is taped and not aired live.
Bee called Ivanka Trump a “feckless c—-” toward the end of a segment about President Trump’s immigration policies. She used the slur in urging Ivanka Trump to speak to her father about policies that separate children from their parents.
“Put on something tight and low-cut and tell your father to f—-ing stop it,” she said.
Bee, a former correspondent on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart whose own show has been one of TBS’ big successes since it started in 2016, said that her language was “inappropriate and inexcusable.
“I crossed a line, and I deeply regret it,” she said.
Before the apology, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called Bee’s language “vile and vicious” and said executives at TBS and corporate parent Time Warner needed to demonstrate that such explicit profanity about female members of the administration would not be condoned.
TBS said Bee had taken the right step in apologizing. The network made no mention of any disciplinary action.
The car company Autotrader said that it would pull its advertising sponsorship from “Full Frontal,” calling Bee’s language offensive and unacceptable. Bee’s show is being honored Thursday by the Television Academy as one of the most “meaningful and relevant” on the air; the academy said the controversy over her language won’t change that.
The academy said its event is “non-political” and that Bee’s recognition is for “her engagement in 2017 on the subject of sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement.”