Blake Shelton Deems Controversial Tweets Inappropriate, Not Racist + Homophobic
Blake Shelton is currently taking heat for a handful (now deleted) tweets poking fun at gay and non-American people, and announcing his "sick fantasy" about a then-underage actress. But The Voice coach and country star is shrugging off the backlash, saying his joke attempts were "inappropriate and immature," but not "hateful."
The tweets in question, sent in 2010 and 2011, were unearthed by Twitter account The Music Tea on August 13. One posted back in March of 2011 read, "Wish the d---head in the next room would either shut up or learn some English so I would at least know what he’s planning to bomb!!"
Another tweet defended Shelton's presumable crush on then-underage actress Dakota Fanning, by (perplexingly) saying she resembled another light-skinned blonde actress: "Sooo… I just figured out a great excuse for my sick fantasy about Dakota Fanning. I thought she was Amanda Seyfried…"
Several of Shelton's other tweets exhibited the tiresome garden-variety "humor" about gay men and women (including Ellen DeGeneres, in this case) most often put forth by straight men who invariably fold in a nervous "I'M NOT GAY THOUGH, HAHA!" beat for good measure, whether saying it outright or mentioning a heterosexual appreciation for boobs. They jokes are dumb, if not earth shattering, and 9 out of 10 people who've never had a close gay friend would find Shelton's warmed-over funnies both wholly inoffensive and hilarious.
"Grown men who wear Chuck Taylor's may as well write on their fore head "Cucumbers turn me on!!" wrote shoe critic, country singer and grammarian Blake Shelton in July of 2010.
While this may be the latest case of a celebrity's #problematic Twitter past coming to light, it's hardly the first: Iggy Azalea and The Daily Show host Trevor Noah are just two other stars whose earlier, controversial tweeted thoughts came back to haunt them as they leveled up in fame. Plenty of us have likely tweeted thoughts we wished we hadn't, famous or not, so Shelton certainly won't be the last to come under fire. And ultimately, Blake's biggest transgression might just be how amateurish and poorly-constructed the jokes are.
Shelton removed the tweets from his account, and shared a note on August 17 stating "I deeply apologize to anybody who may have been offended." See screen caps of Blake Shelton's deleted tweets in the gallery above.
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