Will you accept this apology?
A popular reality contestant is apologizing for recently unearthed “ignorant and hurtful” tweets in which he used homophobic slurs and insulted Black women.
Justin Glaze, an investment sales consultant who became an early fan favorite in the current season of ABC’s “The Bachelorette,” shocked many fans late last week after screenshots of tweets he wrote 10 years ago resurfaced on Reddit.
Since the start of the 8th season of the popular ABC reality show, the 27-year-old Baltimore resident grabbed viewers’ attention with his meme-friendly facial expressions that were widely shared on social media timelines.
Glaze, who according to an official bio is looking for a woman who is “equally beautiful on the inside and out,” also had the distinct pleasure of being the first person to kiss this season’s bachelorette Katie Thurston.
But despite his early-favorite status, Glaze has recently come under fire over some old remarks, written when her was a teenager, in which he used hateful anti-gay language and made “insulting comments about Black women while also promoting colorism,” according to People.
On Monday, he addressed the issue in an appearance on the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast.
“As I reflect on everything I just went through with this whole journey, oftentimes people ask me what I took from it,” he told Bachelor Nation superstars Becca Kufrin and Tayshia Adams.
“And one of the biggest takeaways for me was just my personal growth, and one of those things is being able to hold myself accountable, which is something that historically I wasn’t able to do. So, I have no issue with owning up and apologizing from the bottom of my heart for the really hurtful words that I used,” he said.
“The last thing that I want to do is run from it. That’s not who I am. I just want to speak from the heart, and hopefully, people will get an understanding of where I was then versus where I am now,” he added.
According to Glaze, he was 14 years old and in high school when he wrote the remarks. “And quite frankly I was the type of person who for whatever reason felt the need to fit in and say funny things and keep up with what my peers were doing and saying. The folks I had associated with would throw around really hurtful slurs that, at the time, I didn’t really think anything of.”
However, he admits that even though the remarks don’t represent who he is today, “what I said was ignorant and hurtful then [and ] it’s ignorant and hurtful now.”
“No matter how long it was, those words shouldn’t have come out of my mouth,” he continues, saying that he can now “look back and be ashamed of the words that I used.”
“I know as I’ve matured and evolved and grown as a person, I’m a totally different version of Justin than I was,” he said.
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