MSNBC Host Joy Reid Apologizes For Homophobic Remarks, Admits No Evidence Of Hacking
MSNBC host Joy Reid has apologized for disparaging comments against LGBT people found on her blog The Reid Report, admitting that there has been no evidence of hacking discovered.
After earlier denying authorship of the hurtful remarks, Reid came clean Saturday at the beginning of her MSNBC show AM Joy.
“I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things because they are completely alien to me. But I can definitely understand, based on things I have tweeted, have written in the past, why some people don’t believe me,” she said. “For that, I am truly, truly sorry.”
Reid also apologized to pundit Ann Coulter, whom she suggested in several tweets dating to 2010 and 2011 was a man. “I want to apologize to the trans community and to Ann,” she said.
Originally, Mediaite unearthed the quotes on Reid’s blog, which has been dormant. But the Internet never forgets, and even though Reid previously apologized for blog remarks first uncovered by the site in December, she now claimed the newly discovered comments were the work of tampering.
Earlier, the Daily Beast suspended Reid’s column as its cybersecurity and media reporters investigated Reid’s claims that she was a victim of a cyberattack in which dozens of homophobic statements were added into the archive of her old blog.
Daily Beast Executive Editor Noah Shachtman informed staff in a memo of the internal investigation of a blog she wrote a decade ago.
“In the meantime, we’re going to hit pause on Reid’s columns” he said, until the two reporters probe “has run its course,” Shachtman wrote.
“We’ve all said and done things in our lives that we wish we hadn’t done,” he told staff. “We deserve the room to grow beyond our past. But these allegations are serious enough that they deserve a full examination.”
The FBI also is investigating the homophobic posts from The Reid Report. On Wednesday, Reid’s lawyer said that an FBI investigation has been launched to probe for potential criminal activity on her site,
“We have received confirmation the FBI has opened an investigation into potential criminal activities surrounding several online accounts, including personal email and blog accounts, belonging to Joy-Ann Reid,” said her lawyer John H. Reichman in a statement. “Our own investigation and monitoring of the situation will continue in parallel, and we are cooperating with law enforcement as their investigation proceeds.”
The homophobic blog posts in question, which came to light in to December, speculated that Republican governor of Florida Charlie Crist was a closeted gay man and married a woman as a coverup. The blog also included posts degrading lesbians, condemning gay sex, promoting offensive gay stereotypes and how Reid couldn’t watch Brokeback Mountain.
Reid since has apologized for the Crist speculation, saying that she regretted “the way I addressed the complex issue of the closet and speculation on a person’s sexual orientation with a mocking tone and sarcasm.”
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