excuses, excuses

Blame game: 10 absolutely absurd excuses people have used for acting like bigots

Italian tennis player Fabio Fognini made headlines two weeks ago when he shouted a homophobic slur over and over again during his Olympic tennis match.

After the antigay outburst went viral, the 34-year-old took to Instagram to blame the heat and humidity for his vile behavior. Because extreme temperatures, evidently, trigger homophobia.

“The heat went to my head,” he said.

It was a terrible excuse, and even Fognini seems to have realized it, because this week he wore a rainbow-colored sweatband and matching wristbands at the National Bank Open in an effort to show solidarity with the LGBTQ community.

Scroll down for nine more absolutely absurd excuses people have used for acting like bigots…

The Jared O’Mara “rap music” excuse

When the British former politician was outed in 2017 for calling gay people “poofters,” “heterophobes,” and “fudge packers” online, he tried blaming it on rapper Eminem.

“I used homophobic words,” he admitted, “but they were the words of the time. They were on the Eminem record that I listened to at the time.” Then he said he was being “made unfairly to feel like a criminal.”

Related: Politician blames rap music for his use of antigay slurs, claims he’s the victim of bullying

The Roseanne Barr “Ambian” excuse

After calling former President Obama aide Valerie Jarrett a Muslim ape in 2018, the Trump supporting comedian tried saying her vile behavior was the result of an Ambien-induced stupor.

“It was 2 in the morning and I was ambien tweeting-it was memorial day too-i went 2 far,” Barr said in a tweet, prompting the manufacturer to issue a statement saying that racism is not a known side effect of the popular sleep aide.

Related: Roseanne blames her racism on Ambien and the entire internet is like ‘Girl, bye!’

The Lucian Piane “marijuana psychosis” excuse

The former Drag Race judge fired off a manic volley of racist tweets back in 2016 praising Donald Trump, telling Jewish people to stop with “the Holocaust victim sh*t”, and calling Black people the N-word.

Afterwards, he claimed he’d been suffering from “marijuana psychosis” after consuming 800mg of cannabis edibles in a 48-hour period. “That much apparently takes a while to get out of your system,” he said.

Related: Lucian Piane blames all those racist, pro-Trump tweets on eating way too much marijuana

Then Billy Santoro “too much meth” excuse

Via Twitter

While we’re on the topic of drug-induced meltdowns, the Only Fans model said crystal meth was to blame for disgusting remarks he made about the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.

“I’ve said some things that I totally regret,” Santoro said in a Twitter post, “which I apologize for and by no way mean, while under the influence.” Then he implied he was grateful for what happened because it showed people what the drug (not racism) can do to an individual.

Related: Billy Santoro blames meth for racist diatribes

The Meghan McCain “I’m pregnant!” excuse

And while we’re on the topic of Black Lives Matter, John McCain’s daughter really embarrassed herself last summer when she tweeted that her neighborhood in Manhattan had turned into a “war zone”  by peaceful protestors.

When her neighbor, SNL writer Kristen Bartlett, tweeted to say that wasn’t true, McCain admitted that, OK, OK, she made the whole thing up, she wasn’t even in New York, she was in Virginia, and she was extra emotional because she was six months pregnant, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Related: Meghan McCain blames pregnancy for lying about peaceful protestors destroying her neighborhood

The Deadmau5 “it’s the other guy’s fault” excuse

After he was banned from Twitch in 2019 for going on a hateful homophobic rant, the Canadian DJ tried blaming his behavior on another gamer, or, in his words, “a f*ckin asshat who was being a f*cking asshat”, who he says provoked him.

“It wasn’t directed at an entire group of people who have a sexual orientation that differs from my own,” the musician, who is clearly a stranger to the concept of accountability, said. “F*ck off with that sh*t. I know who I am.”

Related: Deadmau5 apologizes for antigay rant after his initial offensive non-apology

The Tyson Fury “my cousins did it” excuse

The pro boxer has been ensnared in a so many homophobic scandals over the years that we’ve honestly lost count. But the first one happened in 2012, when he tweeted that all gay people should be shot dead.

Fury blamed the tweet on his cousins, saying, “I train three times a day often for two hours a time, and I haven’t got time to respond to all the people that ask questions. So I give my phone to my cousins at the camp.”

That may explain the first homophobic remark, but it doesn’t explain the 25 million other ones he’s made since.

Related: Homophobic Boxer Tyson Fury Would Like You To Please Forget Those Horrible Antigay Comments He Made

The James Hawley “horny gay dudes” excuse

Speaking of homophobic pro-boxers, the 22-year-old British fighter was dropped by his management firm in 2020 after he posted a scathing TikTok video attacking “transgenders” who want to “change your gender and get f*cked in the ass.”

He later apologized for the video and said he was upset because men, or “members of the gay public,” as he called them, wouldn’t quit sliding into his DMS and sending him “inappropriate videos and messages.” So he decided to attack trans people in response.

Related: Pro-boxer James Hawley’s homophobic TikTok rant is not a good look

The Chase Stokes “I’m-sorry-no-I’m-not-sorry-wait-I-was hacked!” excuse

After racist and homophobic tweets he’d written over a decade earlier resurfaced in 2020, the Netflix star tweeted an apology saying he was very sorry and that the things he said in 2007 were not reflective of who he was today. Fans accepted his apology and everyone moved on. The end, right?

Wrong! Because after the whole fiasco had been neatly put to bed, Stokes woke it back up again by deleting his apology then claiming someone had hacked into his account.

“Yo just getting back into twitter. My password was changed, figuring things out,” he wrote. “Somebody obviously got access to my account. So I’m trying to solve this.”

We’re still not sure why anyone would hack another person’s account to apologize for something they had said 13 years earlier, and Stokes has never explained that part of the story either.

Related: Actor Chase Stokes apologizes for homophobic tweets…then says he was hacked?

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