“The Bachelorette” star Hannah Brown has apologised after saying the N-word in an Instagram Live video over the weekend, issuing a statement that read: “There is no excuse and I will not justify what I said.”
The 25-year-old told fans that she had read their messages and had “seen the hurt I have caused.”
“I own it all. I am terribly sorry and know that whether in public or private, this language is unacceptable. I promise to do better,” she said.
Brown’s apology came after she sang the following lyric from DaBaby’s song “Rockstar” on Instagram Live:
Brand new Lamborghini, fuck a cop car
With the pistol on my hip like I’m a cop (yeah, yeah, yeah)
Have you ever met a real nigga rockstar?
Fans denounced Brown for using the racial slur, which led to an awkward exchange on camera.
“I did? I’m so sorry,” Brown said while reading comments from fans who called her action “deplorable.” “No, I was singing. I’m so sorry.”
Moments later, Brown told her friend on camera that she really didn’t “think I said that word.”
“I don’t think I said that word, but now I’m like, ‘Oh God.’ “I’d never use that word. I’ve never called anybody that. We don’t say that word. So, do you know what? Y’all can think I said whatever I did, or think I’m something I’m not, but I’m not that.”
She continued: “Look, people are going to want to think whatever they want to think of me, get mad at me, whatever. And even if I did accidentally say it, I’m very sorry, I was singing a song and not even thinking.”
Meanwhile, various stars from “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” voiced their own feelings. The first and only Black “Bachelorette,” Rachel Lindsay, held her own Instagram Live on Sunday night to address the controversy. Lindsay said she had challenged Brown behind the scenes to use her platform “in a better way.” When Brown did not do that, Lindsay said she chose to speak out publicly because “we can’t give people a pass for this.”
“We have to hold people accountable for what they’re doing,” Lindsay said, before adding: “You should feel disgusted when you say that word. You should feel uncomfortable.”
She shared that the racial slur “has so much weight and history behind it.”
“If you don’t know ... please do yourself a favor and educate yourself on that word,” Lindsay urged, adding that it makes Black people feel “inferior” and that “every time you use that word and you aren’t Black, you give that word power.”
Brown’s former (and currently rumored) beau Tyler Cameron also issued a series of statements on his Instagram Story, shouting out Lindsay’s video specifically.
Cameron implored fans to lift Brown “up from this.”
“She is learning and growing just like every single one of us. Love rids hate. Hate only makes more hate. Let’s learn and lift each other up with love,” he wrote in a series of posts.
Others from the franchise, including Nick Viall and Bekah Martinez, chimed in on their own Instagram pages.
Viall argued that “there is no excuse. Period,” for what Brown had said. Martinez wrote that “we’ve GOT to hold people accountable to do better otherwise we’re continuing to prioritize the feelings of white people (and someone we ‘stan’) over ending our country’s loooong history of casual racism and flippant anti-blackness.”
Brown has been quiet on social media since she posted the apology.