Longtime talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger has posted an apology to her website after a conversation with a caller on Tuesday where she said in the N-word several times. “I articulated the N-word all the way out—more than one time,” Schlessinger said in the apology, which opened her show Wednesday morning. “And that was wrong. I’ll say it again—that was wrong.” Schlessinger claimed she was trying to make a philosophical point and lost her way. She continued in her apology: “I ended up, I’m sure, with many of you losing the point I was trying to make, because you were shocked by the fact that I said the word. I, myself, realized I had made a horrible mistake, and was so upset I could not finish the show. I pulled myself off the air at the end of the hour. I had to finish the hour, because 20 minutes of dead air doesn’t work. I am very sorry. And it just won’t happen again.”
On Tuesday’s show, Schlessinger repeated the N-word several times after a caller, identified as Jade, asked if the word was offensive. “Black guys say it all the time,” Schlessinger, who never directed the word at the caller, said. When the woman objected, Schlessinger commented: “Oh, then I guess you don’t watch HBO or listen to any black comedians.”
