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Entertainment

‘The Talk’ Hiatus Extended Through Next Week As CBS’ Probe Into Sharon Osbourne Controversy Continues – Deadline

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EXCLUSIVE: With the controversy ignited by last Wednesday’s episode of The Talk showing no signs of subsiding, the show’s unplanned hiatus is getting longer. I hear The Talk team tonight were informed that the show will remain dark at least through next week. No return date has been set.

The Talk was originally put on hiatus last Sunday for two days. The break was then extended, and The Talk was scheduled to come back with live shows this coming Tuesday, March 22.

A week ago, CBS launched an investigation into the heated exchange about race at the top of March 10 episode related to Piers Morgan and his statements about Meghan Markle which included pointed comments by Sharon Osbourne toward fellow co-host Sheryl Underwood.

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‘The Talk’ Hiatus Extended Amid Misconduct Allegations Against Sharon Osbourne – Update

Since then, there have been shocking new allegations against Osbourne that she had used racial slur towards former co-host/exec producer Julie Chen. Former The Talk co-host Holly Robinson Peete also claimed that Osborne had called her too “ghetto” to be on the show.

Osbourne has denied the claims and has gone on the offensive, publicly accusing CBS executives of being behind the Wednesday segment, which she calls “a setup.”

Osbourne had an outburst on March 10 when Underwood and co-host Elaine Welteroth quizzed her about her support for her friend Morgan following his attacks on Markle stemming from her and Prince Harry’s Oprah interview.

“While you are standing by your friend, it appears that you are giving validation or safe haven to something that he has uttered that is racist,” Underwood said. Among his most incendiary remarks, Morgan said he did not believe Markle’s suicidal thoughts.

“I feel like I’m about to be put in the electric chair because I have a friend who many people think is racist, so that makes me a racist,” Osbourne said. She apologized for the exchange the next day on Twitter.

“CBS is committed to a diverse, inclusive and respectful workplace across all of our productions,” CBS said last Friday. “We’re also very mindful of the important concerns expressed and discussions taking place regarding events on The Talk. This includes a process where all voices are heard, claims are investigated and appropriate action is taken where necessary.”



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US

The Biden press conference controversy, explained

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As President Joe Biden signed a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill that is supported by a solid majority of Americans and that funds distribution of coronavirus vaccines, among many other things, Fox News is fixating on something he’s not doing: holding formal news conferences.

While he’s answered questions from reporters in informal settings numerous times and held a CNN town hall, Biden has now gone 50 days without holding a formal news conference. It’d be ideal for him to do one, but there are many good reasons he hasn’t yet — the urgent public health and economic crises he inherited, a pandemic that complicates logistics, and the legacy former President Donald Trump left him of presidential news conferences doubling as hate spectacles.

Still, it’s starting to aggravate members of the press corps, with the president of the White House Correspondents Association telling Vanity Fair that full press conferences are “critical to informing the American people and holding an administration accountable.” And the Washington Post editorial board wrote that “it’s past time for Biden to hold a news conference” — even while acknowledging that more press availability didn’t equal more truth or transparency with the previous president.

The careful wording of the Post’s editorial board exemplifies how journalists are having to reevaluate relationships to power and what it means to do adversarial journalism now that the White House isn’t the home of a habitual liar who routinely made reporters objects of hate, even while he was accessible to them with regular helicopter-side press availabilities and coronavirus press briefings that are best remembered for Trump floating the idea of disinfectant as a cure for Covid-19.

But on the cable network that benefited most from the Trump presidency, all of that nuance is lost.

Fox News has done its best in recent days to blow up the fact Biden hasn’t yet had a formal news conference into a major scandal, complete with special graphics and coverage across shows suggesting Biden is hiding something.

On Thursday morning alone, Fox News hosts said things like “President Biden blows off questions from reporters as he goes 50 days without a formal press conference,” and “here we are, day 50 — 50 days into the Biden presidency — and we’ve got a primetime address, but still no formal news conference.”

While it’s true that Biden has broken from modern precedent in not holding a news conference sometime in his first month in office, press secretary Jen Psaki answers questions from reporters every weekday during briefings that illustrate one of the reasons Biden might not be in a rush to do one himself.

Fox News’s Peter Doocy has distinguished himself during Psaki’s briefings by regularly asking loaded, gotcha-style questions on topics ranging from the national anthem to the Olympics to energy policy to school reopenings.

One can understand why Biden, who has jousted repeatedly with Doocy during press availabilities in recent months, might want to spend his time on things other than helping Fox News create readymade clips for Hannity to own him. But his decision not to engage has fed into the narrative Fox has been pushing since the campaign about him purportedly hiding something and being lower energy than former President Donald Trump.

“Your viewers remember when [Trump] would walk out to get on Marine One, he would just do those impromptu press conferences and he’d take every question, all questions, sometimes he’d stay there for 30, 40 minutes,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) during Tuesday’s edition of Sean Hannity’s show. “That’s what the American people deserve.”

What Jordan and Hannity won’t mention, of course, is that while Trump may have been more willing to engage with reporters than Biden himself has so far been, the former president’s interactions with reporters were the opposite of constructive.

Trump’s news conferences are nothing to be wistful about

No discussion of the controversy surrounding Biden and news conferences (such as it is) would be complete without recalling that during the Trump years, presidential engagement with reporters was more WrestleMania than a good-faith sharing of information — something Psaki has tried and mostly succeeded in doing during her press briefings.

To be clear, political journalism that doesn’t hold the powerful to account is nothing more than public relations. Some degree of tension between the press and elected officials is a good and natural thing. But during the Trump years, the relationship between the executive branch and the journalists that covered it devolved into an abusive one.

For instance, during Trump’s first formal news conference — held on February 16, 2017 — he lambasted the press for accurately covering the circumstances surrounding the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn amid revelations he lied to the FBI about his contact with Russia, saying things like “the reporting is fake” and blasting reporters as “dishonest.”

That press conference was such a disaster that Trump went more than a full year before he held another. Yet some observers are contrasting Trump’s February 2017 cage match with the fact Biden hasn’t had a press conference yet as evidence that Biden is somehow falling short.

While Fox News would likely use a Biden press conference to create gotcha moments, there are legitimate questions the president should answer. What’s his strategy for increasing the minimum wage, given that it didn’t make it into the Covid-19 bill? What’s his long-term plan for dealing with the recent surge of undocumented immigrants at the southern border? What’s his response to Democrats who have criticized his decision to launch airstrikes in Syria?

Psaki recently told CNN that Biden plans to answer questions from reporters during a formal news conference sometime soon.

“We look forward to holding a full formal press conference, but in the meantime the president takes questions from the reporters covering the White House regularly, including this morning [on March 3],” she said. “And his focus day in and day out is on getting the pandemic under control and putting people back to work. That’s what people elected him to do.”

Indeed, while signing the Covid-19 bill on Thursday, Biden hinted he’ll hold a news conference soon, telling reporters he’ll “take questions” from them “in the next couple days.”

Fox struggles to land blows on Biden

It’s fair to point out that Biden has gone a relatively long time without having a news conference. But the tendency that has been most pronounced on Fox to blow the issue up into a major scandal illustrates the difficulty they’re having drawing blood on the Biden administration.

Before presser-gate became a big topic, Fox News spent the better part of a week blaming Biden for the (fake) cancellation of Dr. Seuss. Hannity has relentlessly pushed conspiracy theories about Biden’s health, while the network’s “news side” has been heavy on stoking right-wing grievance with never-ending discussions of “cancel culture.”

In this instance as in so many others, Fox’s coverage echoes what prominent Republicans like RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel are saying:

It’s tough for Republicans to attack Biden on the merits right now, given that even a majority of Republican voters support the signature piece of legislation he just signed. But it’s also worth noting it’s not just Fox.

On Thursday, for instance, ABC ran a piece headlined, “Biden not yet holding a news conference raises accountability questions.” And CNN on March 3 ran an article with this lede: “There are many ways to measure an American president’s accessibility. One way is by counting press conferences. Right now, by that count, President Biden looks invisible.”

But if the Trump era taught us anything, it’s that it isn’t the volume of communications a presidential administration has with the press that’s important — it’s their character and quality. Biden himself may so far be less accessible to the press than Trump was, but given what the country endured during the Trump era and the mess Biden inherited, the American people don’t seem to mind that so far he’s been focused on more pressing things.



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Health

Spanish princesses’ Abu Dhabi vaccinations spark controversy 

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Spain’s Princess Elena, left, and Princess Cristina. Ballesteros/Pool/Getty Images

The Covid-19 vaccinations of two Spanish princesses in the United Arab Emirates — much earlier than they would have received them in Spain — have sparked controversy since the news was first reported by El Confidencial digital newspaper in Madrid. 

Several Spanish ministers on Wednesday publicly criticized the two princesses, Elena and Cristina, who were vaccinated recently while visiting their father, Spain’s former King Juan Carlos, in Abu Dhabi, where he’s living.

Soon after the criticism, Princess Elena issued a statement that she said was “in response to media reports about the vaccination.” 

“My sister (Cristina) and I, having gone to visit our father (in Abu Dhabi) and with the aim of getting a health passport that would allow us to visit him regularly, we were offered the vaccine and we accepted it.” 

The statement concluded that had it not been for the circumstances, the princesses would have waited for their turn to get the vaccine in Spain. 

A royal household spokesman noted that princesses Elena and Cristina, while sisters of Spain’s King Felipe, have not had any official duties as members of the royal family at least since 2014.

The spokesman also emphasized that the King, Queen and their two daughters are strictly following Spain’s Covid health guidelines, and “will wait their turn” for the vaccinations in Spain, based on their ages and health conditions. 

Spain, like other European Union countries, has had delays in its vaccine program due to limited supplies. It has also seen a number of government officials and a few Roman Catholic clergy who have jumped the queue to get vaccinations. Several of them later apologized publicly and some resigned from their positions. 

Health Ministry data shows that just 1.4 million people in Spain have received both doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, along with some others getting the AstraZeneca vaccine, in a population of about 47 million. 

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Sports

Football star says he was threatened by alumni over Texas song controversy

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As the controversy over the University of Texas’ school song rages, one player said he was threatened by university alumni over his refusal to participate.

“The Eyes of Texas,” which is traditionally sung after home games, has been under fire in recent months over concerns that the song and tradition behind it are steeped in racism. Over the past several days, the controversy was reignited after a report in the Texas Tribune revealed that alumni threatened to withhold donations from the university if students didn’t participate, calling them “snowflakes,” among other things.

Caden Sterns, who started for three years at safety for the Longhorns, added on to the controversy by revealing on Twitter that he too was threatened by alumni over the song.

“My teammates and I got threatened by some alumni that we would have to find jobs outside of Texas if we didn’t participate,” Sterns wrote.

The song has ties to Confederate general Robert E. Lee and minstrel shows, which are the comic reenactment of racial stereotypes. The University of Texas band didn’t play the song for the football team’s final two home games.

Sterns was a member of the All-Big 12 First Team in 2018 and will enter the 2021 NFL Draft. He is projected to be a late-round pick.



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Sports

Jerry Dipoto, Jarred Kelenic Respond To Kevin Mather Controversy

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The Mariners are in damage-control mode following CEO Kevin Mather’s resignation in the wake of a bizarre video interview that brought considerable backlash on the organization. General manager Jerry Dipoto and manager Scott Servais called the entire situation “embarrassing” when meeting with the Seattle media this week (link via The Athletic’s Corey Brock). Dipoto sought to distance the organization from Mather’s comments, repeatedly emphasizing that Mather was just one individual and that his views were not shared throughout the organization.

Mather, of course, not only all but admitted to service-time manipulation of the organization’s top prospects but also called Marco Gonzales “boring,” said Kyle Seager was “overpaid” and in his last season as a Mariner — it’s not clear whether Seager expected to return after the conclusion of his current contract — and made disparaging comments about being required to pay translators for Japanese players while also slamming top prospect Julio Rodriguez’s English-speaking skills in unprompted fashion (among many other bizarre and at-times troubling comments).

Mather indicated within his interview that top outfield prospect Jarred Kelenic rejected a long-term contract offer, and he only narrowly stopped short of plainly stating the manner in which they planned to delay his MLB debut to gain an extra year of team control. Mather stated that Kelenic would not be on the Opening Day roster, regardless of spring performance, but that he’d be in the Majors by the end of April. It’s true that most teams do this, but public admission of this nature is fuel for a grievance from the MLBPA and only further fans the flames in the looming collective bargaining talks.

Unsurprisingly, Mather’s comments didn’t sit well with Kelenic’s camp. Agent Brodie Scoffield and Kelenic himself spoke to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale yesterday, and both parties indicated that Kelenic would’ve been in the Majors last year had he been willing to sign the extension offer put forth by the Mariners prior to the 2020 season.

Scoffield told Nightengale it was “made crystal clear to Jarred” that the decision to keep him at the Mariners’ alternate training site for the 2020 season was driven by service time. “There’s no question that if he signed that contract, he would have been in the big leagues,” said Scoffield. Kelenic himself agreed, saying it was the “God’s honest truth” that fact was communicated to him multiple times. “It got old,” said Kelenic.

While Dipoto clearly wanted to distance himself from as much of Mather’s commentary as possible, he pushed back on the notion that the Mariners have set out to deliberately game the service-time mechanism.

“I’m not sure how you construe service-time manipulation with a 21-year-old who has played 20 games above A ball and has not yet achieved 800 plate appearances as a professional player,” said the GM. That’s a rather dubious assertion, however. First and foremost, using games played is a clearly flawed benchmark following a year in which zero minor league games took place. Secondly, Mather’s blunt acknowledgment that Kelenic would not open the year with the Mariners but would be up in late April only further underscores the service-time element of the situation.

Despite all the negative attention surrounding the situation and his palpable frustration, Kelenic emphasized to Nightengale that he is wholly committed to the Mariners organization. Citing a love of the fans, the city of Seattle and his teammates, Kelenic said: “If anything, I’m more motivated to bring a World Series championship to Seattle.”

It should also be stressed that the door on a potential extension with the Mariners isn’t closed as a result of this public unpleasantness. Scoffield tells MLBTR that he and Kelenic would still listen to new proposals from the Mariners, should they want to put together another offer. Whether a middle ground can ultimately be reached can’t be known at this time, but at the very least Mariners fans should be heartened that the relationship by no means appears fractured.

Specifics of the Mariners’ original proposal aren’t known, but not all contracts for pre-MLB players are created equal. Kelenic’s teammate, Evan White, inked a six-year, $24MM deal before making his debut — a very similar pact to the one signed by Philadelphia’s Scott Kingery. White Sox left fielder Eloy Jimenez and center fielder Luis Robert, on the other hand, signed six-year pacts worth $43MM and $50MM, respectively, before making their own debuts.

The question for the Mariners now is whether they’ll try for a new deal, stay the course by keeping Kelenic in Triple-A to open the season, or bite the bullet and carry him on the Opening Day roster even without a long-term deal in place. Calling him to the Majors shortly after his service time has been sufficiently held down would be, after all of this attention, one of the more brazen examples of service manipulation in recent memory. Kelenic already spoke to Nightengale of how the now-former CEO’s comments “widened the gap” between the front office and the locker room, adding that Dipoto’s attempt to smooth things over with the players was  “strange” and not particularly well-received.

It’s an ugly situation all-around. However, while Gonzales acknowledged to Brock that Mather’s words were “hurtful and personal” for a lot of the clubhouse, himself included, there could in some ways have a unifying effect on the clubhouse. “Sometimes common goals can unite you,” said Gonzales. “…Sometimes a common enemy can do the same, if not greater.”

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Entertainment

‘The Bachelor’ Matt James Responds To Chris Harrison, Rachael Kirkconnell Controversy – Deadline

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Matt James, the first Black romantic lead for ABC’s The Bachelor, spoke out against the controversies surrounding host Chris Harrison and contestant Rachael Kirkconnell. On Monday, James posted a statement on Instagram in which he condemns both Harrison’s and Kirkconnell’s actions.

“The reality is that I’m learning about these situations in real time, and it has been devastating and heartbreaking to put it bluntly,” he wrote. “Chris’s failure to receive and understand the emotional labor that my friend Rachel Lindsay was taking on by graciously and patiently explaining the racist history of the Antebellum South, a painful history that every American should understand intimately, was troubling and painful to watch.”

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James continues: “As Black people and allies immediately knew and understood, it was a clear reflection of a much larger issue that The Bachelor franchise has fallen short on addressing adequately for years.”

Earlier this month Kirkconnell received backlash after photos resurfaced that show the 24-year-old attending an antebellum plantation-themed fraternity formal in 2018. The contestant apologized for the old photos, noting that she was ignorant and that her “ignorance was racist.”

Kirkconnell’s photos became the topic of an interview between Harrison and contestant Lindsay. In the Extra interview, Harrison defended the season’s front-runner, noting that the photos were taken a long time ago and suggesting that Kirkconnell had become a target of cancel culture. Following the interview and social media backlash, Harrison stepped aside as host and will not appear on the series’ recap episode.

With racism and racial issues taking the Bachelor Nation spotlight, James said the controversies have pushed him to “reevaluate and process what my experience on The Bachelor represents” for contestants of color, specifically Black contestants.

“I will continue to process this experience, and you will hear more from me in the end,” he wrote. “My greatest prayer is that this is an inflection point that results in real and institutional change for the better.”

See James’ full statement below.



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Entertainment

Reply All’s P.J. Vogt departs amid The Test Kitchen controversy

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Reply All co-host P.J. Vogt
Screenshot: YouTube

Last year, the Condé Nast-owned Bon Appétit found itself hit with a reckoning of sorts, after numerous staffers of color—including Priya Krishna, Sohla El-Waylly, Rick Martinez, Gaby Melian, Molly Baz, and Carla Lalli Music—departed its popular Test Kitchen series of videos over accusations of lower pay compared to white colleagues, tokenization, stolen credit, and more. The scandal revealed a great deal about the inner workings and power differentials in a site that often strove to portray its staffers as a group of mutually respectful colleagues all just hanging out in the kitchen together, and highlighted disparities in power and pay throughout the site’s organization.

Now a different, but related, Test Kitchen is finding itself undergoing similar scrutiny, as Vulture reports that Sruthi Pinnamaneni and P.J. Vogt, a senior reporter and host, respectively, for the Reply All podcast, are stepping away from the series after their reporting on Bon Appétit brought to light similar issues at their own Spotify-owned Gimlet Media. Specifically, Eric Eddings, a former Gimlet staffer and co-host of The Nod podcast, outlined in a Twitter thread earlier this week a number of ways Vogt and Pinnamaneni, who covered Bon Appétit through their The Test Kitchen Spotify miniseries, were allegedly obstructive to efforts to diversify Gimlet’s staff, specifically during the period in which the company’s employees were pushing to unionize. Among other things, Eddings wrote that, “The BA staffers’ stories deserve to be told, but to me it’s damaging to have that reporting and storytelling come from two people who have actively and AGGRESSIVELY worked against multiple efforts to diversify Gimlet’s staff & content.” He went on to detail a number of instances in which Vogt and Pinnamaneni pushed back against organizing and diversification efforts.

Both Vogt and Pinnamaneni have issued apologies in light of Eddings’ statements; while Pinnamaneni was already planning to depart Reply All after The Test Kitchen miniseries, she has now left the show mid-production. Meanwhile, Vogt, who co-hosts Reply All with Alex Goldman and Emmanuel Dzotsi, has stated that he is going to “step away” from the podcast, with Vulture reporting that his departure from the series will be “permanent.” Gimlet Media has yet to issue a statement on the departures.



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Entertainment

Chris Harrison, Rachael racism controversy looms

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Chris Harrison announced that he will take time away from hosting “The Bachelor” amid recent controversial remarks.

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It’s impossible to watch the latest episode of “The Bachelor” without thinking about the explosion inside the franchise this past week.

Chris Harrison, the host of the franchise since its 2002 debut, announced Saturday he would be “stepping aside” from the show “for a period of time” and won’t appear in Matt James’ “After the Final Rose” special in March, following backlash for defending current front-runner Rachael Kirkconnell, who apologized last week for “offensive and racist” actions. 

A deluge of prominent former franchise stars and contestants have since spoken out, pushing for Harrison’s resignation, applauding Rachel Lindsay –  the franchise’s first Black star, who was interviewing Harrison when he made the comments – and calling for those who work on and watch the show to take greater action to fight racism. 

All this offscreen controversy makes for a strange viewing experience, particularly in a later scene in which singer Aloe Blacc, an outspoken social justice activist, performs a private show for Kirkconnell and James. 

But first: Heather Martin, the former contestant from Colton Underwood’s season who crashed the pre-rose ceremony cocktail party last week in an attempt to get to know Matt, doesn’t get the chance to join the cast. Matt says he already sees his wife in the remaining contestants and doesn’t think it would be fair to any of them to add another woman to the mix. 

At the rose ceremony, Matt says goodbye to Serena C. and Chelsea, which means we’re actually down to the final 10 now (Matt promises no more last-minute additions).

Serena P. gets the first one-on-one date, an awkward tantric yoga session that she hates. He feels horrible that she was uncomfortable but loves that she was honest with him, and that’s enough to give her the rose that ensures she’ll make it to “hometown” week, which this season takes place on location at the Nemacolin Resort for COVID-19 safety purposes.

Pieper, Michelle, Rachael, Bri, Kit and Abigail join Matt for a cocktail party group date. Abigail worries they still haven’t had a one-on-one date. Although she received Matt’s first-impression rose, he now feels his other relationships are stronger and decides to send her home. 

Rachael nabs the group rose, which means she gets a bit of solo time with Matt, and they head off to that private Aloe Blacc concert. What’s meant to be a romantic moment is marred now by controversy outside the show, after news surfaced that Rachael “liked” Confederate flag-themed TikToks and a photo resurfaced that appears to show her attending a plantation-themed fraternity formal in 2018.

“I’m head over heels in love. Get on one knee right now, it’s a done deal,” Rachael says in a confessional interview.

More unexpected eliminations are to come: Kit shows up at Matt’s door and says she doesn’t have the clarity she needs to head to hometown dates before deciding to send herself home. And after a one-on-one date with Jessenia, Matt reveals he can’t give her the rose because he’s missing that compatibility. 

The end of the episode brings us a second rose ceremony – finally, off this upside-down schedule of beginning each episode with the last week’s eliminations! – in which Matt says goodbye to Pieper, which means Bri, Michelle, Rachael and Serena P. (the last standing Serena) become his Final Four and will head to their “hometowns” in next week’s episode.

One highlight we didn’t see coming: Michelle’s post-rose ceremony push-ups. She jokes, right before the Final Four give a toast, that she needs to look good for the camera, and drops for a few push-ups – in excellent form and a ballgown, we might add – as the rest of the women and Matt laugh.

In a teaser for next week’s episode, we get a glimpse of those “hometown” dates: Serena’s family wonders if she’s really in love with Matt, while Rachael worries she can’t get to know someone in such a short time frame. Meanwhile, Matt is concerned that everything he’s been “working toward is starting to crumble.” 

Outside of the show, it feels that way, too. 

More: Rachel Lindsay ‘cant do it anymore,’ won’t renew ‘Bachelor’ contract

Chris Harrison talks ‘woke culture,’ ‘The Bachelor’ Matt James opens up about his groundbreaking casting as the first Black bachelor

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Entertainment

Morgan Wallen speaks out amid ongoing n-word controversy, says he was on 72-hour bender

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Country music star Morgan Wallen is speaking out as he continues to face fallout in his career after being caught on video using a racial slur.

Last week, a video leaked featuring Wallen using the n-word and since then, he’s faced fierce backlash from the country music industry. He was deemed ineligible for this year’s Academy of Country Music Awards and his music has been pulled from iHeartRadio stations while he was also suspended by his record label.

Wallen, 27, previously apologized for using the slur, but has remained silent since, and was recently even dropped by talent agency WME.

On Wednesday evening, the singer took to Instagram to share an apology video.

MORGAN WALLEN WILL LIKELY FACE TWO-YEAR CAREER ‘SETBACK’ AFTER ‘LETHALLY STUPID’ N-WORD VIDEO, EXPERT SAYS

“I’m long overdue to make a statement regarding my last incident,” he said, adding that he took time to collect his thoughts and “seek some real guidance.”

Morgan Wallen has released a statement of apology after being caught using a racial slur on video. (Associated Press)

“The video you saw was me on hour 72 of a bender, and that’s not something I’m proud of either,” he admitted. “Obviously, the natural thing to do is to apologize further and continue to apologize because you got caught, and that’s not what I wanted to do.”

The Tennessee native continued: “I let so many people down who mean a lot to me, who have given so much to me, it’s just not fair. I let my parents down and they’re the furthest thing from the person in that video. I let my son down and I’m not OK with that.”

MORGAN WALLEN’S ALBUM SALES INCREASE AMID RACIAL SLUR CONTROVERSY

Wallen said he took time to apologize to the people in his life that he knew were personally hurt and engaged in “some very real and honest conversations” with leaders of various Black organizations.

He noted that he was “nervous” to engage in such conversations as he felt “they had every right to step on my neck while I was down” but instead, “they offered me grace and they also paired that with an offer to learn and to grow.”

Wallen was dropped by his talent agency, suspended by his label and was deemed ineligible for ACM Awards after being seen using the n-word. (Getty Images)

Wallen said the kindness showed by those willing to engage with him inspired him “to dig deeper” and helped him to learn that “a word can truly hurt a person.”

“This week I heard firsthand some personal stories from Black people that honestly shook me,” he added. “And I know what I’m going through this week doesn’t even compare to some of the trials I about from them. I came away from those discussions with a deep appreciation for them and a clearer understanding of the weight of my words.”

MORGAN WALLEN DROPPED BY TALENT AGENCY AMID RACIAL SLUR DRAMA

“Our actions matter. Our words matter and I just want to encourage anyone watching to please learn from my mistake,” the singer urged. “There’s no reason to downplay what I did. It matters and please know I’m carefully choosing my next steps in repair.”

Morgan Wallen said that he engaged in conversations with Black organizations to learn about the impact of his words. (Getty Images)

On a more “positive note,” Wallen shared that he’s now been sober for nine days since the video was taken. He admitted that nine days isn’t a terribly long time, but it’s long enough to recognize that he doesn’t want to be the version of himself in the video.

The star said “the majority of [his] mistakes are made” when he’s not sober.

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“I’ve decided to go off the grid for a little while and get used to making good decisions,” he announced. “I want my team, my family, my friends and even strangers to trust me. Hell, I wanna trust me. Who knows if I’ll be able to live down all the mistakes I’ve made, but I’m certainly going to try.”

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Wallen then asked his fans not to defend him because he “was wrong” and now takes “ownership” of the problem.



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Sports

Patrick Reed wins Farmers Insurance Open by 5 shots a day after rules controversy

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SAN DIEGO — Showing no effects from a rules controversy a day earlier, Patrick Reed pulled away for a 5-shot victory Sunday in the Farmers Insurance Open.

Reed closed with a 4-under 68 at Torrey Pines, making an eagle on the par-5 sixth and finishing off his ninth PGA Tour title with a birdie on the 18th.

The former Masters champions finished at 14 under after a consistent four days at the blufftop municipal courses overlooking the Pacific Ocean. He shared the first-round lead with Alex Noren, was in a group a shot off the lead in the second round and then shared the third-round lead with Carlos Ortiz.

The controversy arose Saturday on the par-4 10th when Reed hit a 190-yard shot out of a bunker. A TV replay showed the ball bounced once before settling into the rough. Without waiting for an official, Reed picked up the ball to see if it was embedded. Reed told the official that no one in his group, as well as a nearby volunteer, saw it bounce. He was awarded a free drop and saved par in a round of 70.

On Sunday, Reed jump-started his round with a 45-foot eagle putt on No. 6 to get to 12 under and followed with a birdie on the par-4 seventh. His only bogey was on the par-3 eighth, and he rebounded with a birdie on the par-5 ninth. He played par the rest of the way until sinking an 8-foot birdie putt on No. 18.

Tony Finau, Xander Schauffele, Ryan Palmer, Henrik Norlander and Viktor Hovland tied for second.

Hovland had been the closest in pursuit with four birdies on the front nine, including on the ninth to get to 12 under. But the birdies dried up and he bogeyed Nos. 14, 15 and 17 — missing a 2-footer on 17 — in a round of 1-under 71.

Ortiz stumbled badly with a round of 6-over 78. He hurt himself with three bogeys on the front nine that left him even at the turn. He had even more trouble on the back nine, where he bogeyed No. 11 and then had trouble getting out of a greenside bunker on No. 12, taking a double-bogey 6. He bogeyed 15, 16 and 18.

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