{"id":13299,"date":"2014-06-02T18:52:37","date_gmt":"2014-06-02T10:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=13299"},"modified":"2014-06-03T19:00:22","modified_gmt":"2014-06-03T11:00:22","slug":"justin-bieber-apologizes-for-racial-slur-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/06\/02\/justin-bieber-apologizes-for-racial-slur-joke\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Bieber apologizes for racial slur joke"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Justin<\/a>
Justin Bieber<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK — Justin Bieber is apologizing after a years-old video surfaced showing the then-teenager telling a racist joke with the N-word.<\/p>\n

In a statement Sunday to The Associated Press, Bieber said when he was a kid he didn’t realize how certain words could hurt. He says he learned from his mistakes and apologized for them, and now is apologizing again because they have become public.<\/p>\n

“I’m very sorry,” Bieber said. “I take all my friendships with people of all cultures very seriously and I apologize for offending or hurting anyone with my childish and inexcusable behavior.”<\/p>\n

The British tabloid The Sun first published the video, which is five years old. In it, a then 15-year-old Bieber tells a joke about black people that has the racial epithet as the punchline. Before he says it, someone warns him not to – but he says it anyway amid laughter.<\/p>\n

“I thought it was ok to repeat hurtful words and jokes, but I didn’t realize at the time that it wasn’t funny and that in fact my actions were continuing the ignorance,” the statement said. “Thanks to friends and family I learned from my mistakes and grew up and apologized for those wrongs. Now that these mistakes from the past have become public I need to apologize again to all of those who I have offended.”<\/p>\n

It’s the latest controversy for Bieber, who over the past couple of years has dealt with brushes with the law and other problems that have dealt a blow to his once wholesome image. The video was taken when Bieber was just emerging as a pop sensation.<\/p>\n

In his statement, Bieber said that “ignorance has no place in our society and I hope the sharing of my faults can prevent others from making the same mistake in the future.<\/p>\n

“I thought long and hard about what I wanted to say but telling the truth is always what’s right.”<\/p>\n

He ends the statement by saying “Once again … I’m sorry.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — Justin Bieber is apologizing after a years-old video surfaced showing the then-teenager telling a racist joke with …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":8152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,106],"tags":[4545,4546,4547],"class_list":["post-13299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-hollywood","tag-justine-bieber","tag-racial-slur","tag-racist-joke","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}