“I am deeply ashamed to have taken part in such an offensive bit.”
Rebecca Black has issued an apology for participating in a joke about the Holocaust during a 2014 video with YouTube star Shane Dawson.
The “Friday” singer owned up to the mistake after a clip of the cringe-worthy bit resurfaced online recently.
In it, the pair play a game of charade where Dawson holds up a piece of paper to his head with “Holocaust” written on it and then asks Black to act it out so he can guess the word.
I am deeply ashamed to have taken part in such an offensive bit. Yes I was 16, uncomfortable, and didn’t know this was coming. Shane, I know that deep down you are trying to learn and grow. But we must do better & take complete responsibility for how harmful this is. @shanedawson https://t.co/xaPrB0uoTB
— Rebecca Black (@MsRebeccaBlack) June 30, 2020
@MsRebeccaBlack
After Black, who was 16 at the time, fails at her first attempt, Dawson asks if the answer is her song “Friday,” to which she responds, “I mean, I’m sure it happened on Fridays but… “
Dawson takes the paper off his head, looks at it and starts parodying her song with a Holocaust reference, singing, “It’s Friday, Friday, girl, somebody save me.”
On Monday, Black, now 23, tweeted, “I am deeply ashamed to have taken part in such an offensive bit. Yes I was 16, uncomfortable, and didn’t know this was coming.”
“Shane, I know that deep down you are trying to learn and grow. But we must do better & take complete responsibility for how harmful this is.”
this tweet was made out of frustration as you can see from the thread – i began posting out of shock and the more i found the more upset i was – i do not blame her or group her as part of the issue, but this is a great example of what not to do, educate kids don’t enable them😭😭
— . (@rarestfenty) June 30, 2020
@rarestfenty
She later added, “I am so sorry to those I have hurt. I wish what I would have done was shut such an offensive joke down, rather than uncomfortably play into something I deep down knew was wrong.”
The person who originally posted the clip, who goes by the handle @rarestfenty, did show support for Black by saying, “i do not blame her or group her as part of the issue, but this is a great example of what not to do, educate kids don’t enable them.”
“she does look incredibly uncomfortable, she needs to come out and say that or explain herself, otherwise she looks just as bad as him in this video, she still needs to be held accountable.”
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Meanwhile, Dawson, who boasts 22.4 million followers, is under fire for using Blackface, saying the N-word, mocking people with disabilities, and making pedophilia jokes on his YouTube channel over the years.
Backlash also followed after a clip resurfaced where he pretends to masturbate while looking at a poster of 11-year-old Willow Smith.
The 31-year-old took to his channel to issue an apology on Friday during a video called “Taking Accountability.”
“I should lose everything,” he said in the 20-minute clip. “I have put so much hate on the Internet.”
On Tuesday, YouTube suspended monetization on his channel.
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