Mistakes were made, and subsequently atoned for. On Thursday morning, Australian television host Karl Stefanovic raised the ire of Today Show viewers with offhanded remarks about the transgender community, referring to them as “trannies.”
Stefanovic and his co-host Sylvia Jeffreys were discussing an odd incident involving Channel Nine journalist Christine Ahern, a cameraman, and a security guard, all of whom were embroiled in a confrontation with a transgender person on a Rio beach after she tried stealing from the crew.
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Jeffreys remarked that Stefanovic was “no stranger to the ways of the tranny” and said she had “fought off tougher trannies” before. He joined in kind, holding up a poster of actor Hugo Weaving in drag from The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and claiming he might be the suspect police were searching for.
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“We’ve got a confit (police sketch) done up and we know not all trannies look the same,” he said. “Is that the tranny there that we’re talking about, Hugo Weaving like?”
Now, he’s stepped forward to publicly apologize for those remarks, saying he often laughs at things he shouldn’t and that he “didn’t know the negative and deeply hurtful impact” of his comments.
“As we all know I can be a complete tool,” he said. “Yesterday I was worse, I was an ignorant tool.”
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@karlstefanovic awesome job apologising and encouraging people to educate themselves about the power of language. Nice one!!!
— Indie Bag (@purpleseawater) July 29, 2016
Watch the apology, and decide whether you’ll forgive him or just be really difficult:
Brian
How did these people get a job in TV? They should be doing other things instead of hosting shows that very few people watch.
Dave Downunder
@Brian: Don’t mouth off about things you know nothing about Brian. Karl Stefanovic is a great supporter of the gay community and is a well respected and very popular TV host and reporter on one of (if not the) most popular morning news program in Australia. I would like to know how you know that nobody watches it.
He can be a bit if goose (but that his part of his charm) who doesn’t take himself to seriously and often will advocate for causes he believes in from gay rights to women’s rights and sexism and more.
His swift a absolute recognition and apology for what he admits were comments born of pure ignorance and his willingness to meet with members of the trans community to educate himself on this issue is exactly the kind of guy he is. I wish that there were more public figures in the media like him not only in Australia but elsewhere in the world.
ProfessorMoriarty
“A bit of a goose.” God how I love Australians. 😎
MacAdvisor
@Dave Downunder:
“Karl Stefanovic is a great supporter of the gay community and is a well respected and very popular TV host and reporter on one of (if not the) most popular morning news program in Australia.”
I think we can forgive Brian his lack of knowledge about a medium-size fish in a small pond. Australia has a population of 20 million people or about the size of Florida. Anyone not living in Florida know the name of a middling popular morning news person in Florida? Didn’t think so.
ChuckF
Can this guy give Donald Trump lessons?