Late-night host Samantha Bee issued an on-air apology to Ivanka Trump on Wednesday evening, a week after she called the president’s daughter a “feckless c**t” during a segment on her program.
“A lot of people were offended and angry that I used an epithet to describe the president’s daughter and adviser last week,” Bee said at the beginning of her show, “Full Frontal.” “It is a word I have used on the show many times hoping to reclaim it. This time I used it as an insult; I crossed the line and I regret it, and I do apologize for that.”
The apology echoed another that Bee made last week, a day after her comment caused a firestorm that led to advertisers dropping the program and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders labeling the host “vile and vicious.”
Bee elaborated that she’d attempted to normalize the use of the term with her humor but noted that “many women have heard that word at the worst moments of their lives.”
“A lot of them don’t want that word reclaimed. They want it gone, and I don’t blame them. I don’t want to inflict more pain on them. I want this show to be challenging and I want it to be honest, and I never intended it to hurt anyone except Ted Cruz,” she quipped. “Many men were also offended by my use of the word. I do not care about that.”
The host ended her monologue with another apology, to children currently being held in juvenile detention centers under a new Trump administration policy that has seen an increase in families being separated after crossing the border illegally.
“I hate that this distracted from more important issues. I hate that I did something to contribute to the nightmare of 24-hours news cycles that were all white-knuckling through,” Bee said. “I should’ve known that a potty-mouthed insult would’ve been inherently more interesting to them than juvenile immigration policy. I would do anything to help those kids, I hate that this distracted from them, so to them, I am also sorry.”
“But you know what? Civility is just nice words. Maybe we should all worry a little bit more about the niceness of our actions.”
Watch the full clip above.