MSNBC host Joy Reid addressed the homophobic posts on her now-defunct blog in the opening monologue of her show Saturday morning.
“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 and have written in the past, why some people don’t believe me,” she said. “I have not been exempt from being cruel or hurtful to the very people I want to advocate for. I own that. I get it. And for that I am truly, truly sorry.”
She apologized for specific instances where she has been homophobic, adding that she was raised in a conservative household and that her views have evolved with age.
“Especially for trans people I feel like I should have known better than to ever write in a way to make fun of or make light of that pain and experience even a decade ago when the country was in a very different place, but I cannot take any of that back,” she said. “I can only say that the person I am now is not the person I was then.”
Posts from Reid’s old blog were published on Monday, containing vitriolic homophobic comments. Reid has denied that she wrote the posts, even getting a cyber expert to investigate traces of hacking. Some have doubted her claims, citing old posts voicing homophobic sentiments that were unearthed in December.
Watch below:
Joy Reid addresses the homophobic posts on her now-defunct blog pic.twitter.com/RjCueROieT
— Kate Riga (@Kate_Riga24) April 28, 2018