“Full Frontal” host Samantha Bee has opened up about the backlash she received after using the C-word to describe Ivanka Trump in May.
The comedian told The Daily Beast she had one regret about calling President Donald Trump’s daughter a “feckless cunt” during a segment about the Trump administration’s policy of separating undocumented children from their parents at the border: that her language, not Trump’s immigration policies, became the focus.
“I was very regretful that that moment really took away from what I was trying to say with the segment,” Bee said. “And the segment really effectively disappeared, you can’t find it anymore. That’s really a shame, because the subject matter was really important to me.”
At the time, the president responded to the segment by calling for Bee to be fired. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the comment was “vile and vicious.”
Bee later apologized for “using an expletive” to describe the first daughter. “It was inappropriate and inexcusable. I crossed a line, and I deeply regret it,” she said.
The wording of the statement was “very specific,” she told The Daily Beast.
“The apology was not offered to the right,” she said. “It was not offered as a concession to their demands, at all. It was offered in a very specific manner and I don’t regret putting it out there. I think it was the right thing to do.”
Bee also had a message for many of those who engaged in the “overblown” criticism of her comment, saying they “should be embarrassed by their own conduct these days.”
“I could not give a single fuck what they think of me,” she said. “And why should I? You can’t make a comedy show that pleases everyone, nor should you ever try.”
Check out Bee’s full interview with The Daily Beast here.