Adventures in celebrity misspeakings, as Kelly Osbourne opines on Donald Trump’s racism and everyone gets the wrong end of the stick. Last month the US presidential hopeful attacked Mexico for “bringing crime, and their rapists” to the US. This week on TV series The View, Kelly inquired rhetorically: “If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilet, Donald Trump?”
Oh dear. Clearly, any implication anyone might have divined from this was a massive misapprehension on their part. With disquiet voiced immediately among her View co-hosts, Kelly declared: “Come on, you know I would never mean it like that.”
Is there another way? It would seem so – though as the day wore on, Kelly found she did have an apology-esque statement to make. “I will take responsibility for my poor choice of words,” she conceded. “But I will not apologise for being a racist as I am NOT … I’ve learned a very valuable lesson. It is my hope that this situation will open up a conversation about immigration and the Latino community as a whole.”
“By the way,” ran Kelly’s upbeat last word on the matter. “I clean my own fucking toilets.”
And if this can also start a conversation on the institutional misunderstanding of entirely benign celebrity comments, then I’m sure we’ll all be the richer for it.
