ABC/Jeff NeiraNever you mind, Kelly Osbourne. Celebrities saying stupid things in public is hardly an offense specific to you.
Look at Donald Trump!
But aside from politicians, many of whom are persistently offensive while pandering to their bases, a number of entertainers have been caught (and thanks to the internet, caught for posterity) making racially or ethnically insensitive comments.
Kelly fell prey to the recesses of her mind and the rapid-fire pace of live morning-show chit-chat yesterday on The View when a point she meant to make about Trump's oft-hateful stance on illegal immigration came out entirely wrong and made it sound like she was the epitome of ignorant white privilege. And Nicolle Wallace actually kinda nailed it when she wondered during The View today if her fellow co-hosts would be so quick to forgive and defend someone on the other end of the political spectrum if they had said the same thing.
Though she took to social media yesterday to explain herself, she actually came off as rather angry at anyone who didn't already know for a fact that she's not racist. So she gave contrition another try today with Extra.
"If I saw that clip just with the 10 seconds I'd hate me too," she told the show. "I'm OK with people calling me whatever they want to call me, however, I'm not OK that I hurt people's feelings. It was my poor choice of words and it doesn't reflect my opinion at all and I do not want to be pulled into this political nightmare."
Kelly also said: "I don't quite understand how it got this big considering Rosie [Perez] and I are really good friends... she felt bad because she knew when she stopped me. I didn't get to finish my point, but I also knew that she was only trying to protect her community, which she should and I couldn't understand why she was apologizing, I couldn't let her take the heat."
Ultimately, "It came out of my mouth and I will do whatever I have to do to make it right," she added.
So, we don't think Osbourne is actually racist and of course we believe that she's sorry (for a variety of reasons), but isn't it just kinda crazy how scarily often these silly things come flying out of famous people's mouths? Or out of their phones?
Aren't they supposed to be the poised, prepared ones?! Here are nine more times that celebs offended:
1. Paula Deen: Aside from what the once queen-bee Food Network star and cookbook author said 30 years before the masses knew she had said it, her apology was one of those don't-people-know-me-better-than-that affairs. "I am here today because I want people to know who I am, and people that have worked beside me, have walked beside, know what kind of person I am," she said on Today. Deen, who now has her own online channel, denied being racist, saying, "The day I used that word [the N-word, that is] was a world ago."
No, the Civil War was a world ago.
2. John Galliano: Remember when the former creative director of Dior said he was a fan of Hitler and was accused of ranting ethnic slurs in a Paris restaurant? A stint in rehab, a criminal conviction and a whole lot of soul-searching later, the fashion world has welcomed him back with tentatively open arms as the rehabilitated creative director of Maison Martin Margiela.
Because in fashion, 2011 was a world ago.
3. Mel Gibson: To be, um, fair, he didn't drunkenly say that "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" in public, as was widely reported. Nor did he tell the mother of his eighth child, Oksana Grigorieva, that he hoped she would be "raped by a pack of n---ers" in public. And yet we know all about it, thanks to online leaks, and his career has never been the same despite assurances from his longtime friends, including Whoopi Goldberg, that he's not that guy.
May we ask...which guy is he?
4. Stacey Dash: There could be a whole story about the Clueless star's perspective on life, or at least the one she shares with the world as a Fox News personality. But coming to mind in this case: the time she used a Malcolm X quotation to chide Oprah Winfrey for comparing the slaying of Trayvon Martin in 2012 to the murder of Emmett Till in 1955. (It was really hard to refrain from using italics and cap locks just now.)
Just...why?
5. Gabourey Sidibe: She used the word "tranny" five times in a minute during a sit-down with Arsenio Hall on his recent brief return to late-night TV last year. Talking about nights out with friends, she recalled, "There was a bar that we would frequent, and every time we'd go, when we were leaving—every single time—there was always, like, a gang of cops arresting trannies. And I don't know what goes on with trannies, but that tranny-on-tranny crime needs to stop!"
Well, something needed to stop. The actress apologized afterward (in response to the backlash, that is), saying she didn't realize it was an offensive slur. Actually, that word has been so unfortunately deeply rooted in pop culture, she couldn't have been alone in not getting it, but here's hoping the situation alerted a lot of people all at once. (And we are now re-alerting you in case you didn't know.)
6. Jamie Foxx: Presumably someone wrote at least part of his monologue for him, but when the Oscar winner hosted Saturday Night Live in 2012, the recurrent theme was him asking "how black is that?" He described his role in Django Unchained like this: "I play a slave. How black is that? I have to wear chains. How whack is that? But don't worry. I get free. I save my wife and I kill all the white people in the movie. How great is that?"
Actually, that may have been how Quentin Tarantino shopped the film to studios.
Asked about the controversy afterward, he said on Today, "I'm a comedian, so..."
7. Michael Richards: The former Seinfeld star apparently forgot he was on a stage when he launched into a racially charged rant during a set at West Hollywood's Laugh Factory. Thanks pretty much solely to his friend Jerry Seinfeld, Richards was allowed a public platform on which to apologize and still gets work.
8. Hulk Hogan: The WWE may have set a record with how quickly it tried to distance itself from the wrestling super-star after it went public last week that he had gone on a racist, N-word-pocked rant years ago with regard to a guy his daughter Brooke may have been seeing at the time. (As was the case with Paula Deen, the conversation came to light in court documents filed in support of pending litigation.) Ironically, Hogan actually said at the time, per the transcript of the recording, "I guess we're all a little racist."
9. Chelsea Handler: After she dissed Nick Cannon's comedic chops on Twitter in 2010, he fired back, tweeting that he used to admire her as a comic but "for one artist to diss another in the same art form. Tasteless." And she replied with a pic of a can of grape soda, adding, "Pls drink this before you tweet me again."
He didn't exactly class it up afterward, branding her "angry ugly whitetrash," but...good grief. Who was Chelsea trying to channel, Fuzzy Zoeller circa 1997?