15 Celebrities Caught Being Racist [Photos]
At least once a year when people start talking all that post-racial hoopla, you can count on some video or audio clip to surface that immediately shuts down such talk. This year is was Oklahoma University’s SAE clip.
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Last year, it was Donald Sterling’s leaked conversation. It’s like clockwork. While they get paid to push the envelope and influence pop culture stars aren’t immune. These 15 celebrities caught being racist had to learn the hard way when their popularity took a hit.
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Photo: WENN
photo: WENN
Iggy Azalea
Part of the reason Azealia Banks hates I-G-G-Y is because she dropped some hashtag rap with racist overtones on the 2012 track “D.R.U.G.S.” featuring YG. She later apologized for saying she was like a runaway slave…master.
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Eminem
In 2003, during a heated beef with Eminem, Ray Benzino hunted down an old rap from 1988 featuring a young Marshall Mathers being all kinds of racist. Em apologized and said he was both angry and foolish back then. After a brief uproar, it has essentially become a blip on his resume.
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Rihanna
During what seemed like a brief reconciliation with Chris Brown, Rihanna made several rice cake references in song and on her Twitter feed, which were allegedly aimed at Brown’s girlfriend Karrueche Tran.
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Paula Deen
By most accounts, Deen wasn’t deemed so much a malicious racist as she was someone who was just incredibly ignorant and out of touch with the times. She admitted freely using a common slur and dreaming of a Southern plantation-style wedding in 2013. The contrition was hit or miss, since she was still plugging her products during the unofficial apology tour.
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Giuliana Rancic
Someone should explain what locks are to Giuliana Rancic and the writers of the E! show Fashion Police. Rancic caused controversy after saying Zendaya Coleman’s fake locks made her look as if she smelled of Patchouli and dro. She eventually apologized, but fellow Fashion Police member Kelly Osbourne ended up leaving the show.
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Mel Gibson
In two separate incidents, Gibson blamed his anti-Semitic and racist remarks against African-Americans on booze. Even after entering rehab, Gibson gets the IDFWU treatment.
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Macklemore
In May of 2014, Macklemore popped up at a secret show in the costume of what appeared to be an anti-Semitic caricature. He later kind of apologized, saying the costume pieces were chosen at random. Given his stance on white privilege, he earned himself a pass.
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Don Imus
Radio host Don Imus showed his true colors when he called members of the Rutgers Women’s basketball team “nappy headed hoes” and a racial slur in 2007. CBS canned him amid a mild firestorm.
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Sean Penn
While presenting Alejandro Iñárritu with the 2015 Oscar for Best Picture, Penn made what he said was an inside joke with the Mexican-born filmmaker about his green card. Penn refused to apologize, and Iñárritu took it in stride signaling that it was in fact a non-malicious joke made between two friends.
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Donald Sterling
The former Los Angeles Clippers owner stumbled upon another two billion dollars after he was forced to sell his team. His mistress recorded him making racist comments about bringing black men to Clippers’ games, which capped decades of racist behavioral policies and remarks by Sterling. Bigotry pays.
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Lindsay Lohan
Maybe Lohan thought because she has a picture or two with a rapper it was cool for her to tweet the N-word as part of quoting Kanye West’s lyrics. Then again, she either knew she was foul or was quickly called out, since she tried to delete the tweet. We see that type of stuff #AllDay.
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Charlie Sheen
Not only does Charlie Sheen belittle and insult his ex-wife, he opts for a racial slur when doing so. Such was the case when a leaked voicemail of Sheen calling Denise Richards the dreaded N-bomb in 2008. Why?
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Shaq
NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal enjoyed a brief on-court rivalry with Chinese center Yao Ming before curiously speaking in faux-Chinese gibberish when asked about a game with Ming in 2003. He later gave an apology that was accepting by Yao and others, but some were still offended.
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John Mayer
Someone convinced singer John Mayer that he had a pass to drop the N-word. That was just one of the many revelations during Mayer’s 2010 Playboy interview. He had to repeatedly apologize for that and also stating his preference for only dating white women.
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Justin Bieber
He doesn’t seem like college material, but maybe young Biebs had hopes of joining SAE when two videos of him surfaced making racist jokes and dropping N-bombs at the age of 15.
