Evander Holyfield enters the Celebrity Big Brother House at Elstree Studios on January 3, 2014 in Borehamwood, England. Credit: Karwai Tang/WireImage
Dear Celebrities and Sports Figures of the World,
Hi. It’s me. Dorothy Robinson. Your intrepid Word columnist. Can we talk for a minute about you and what comes out of your mouth?
It’s pretty easy. You can say anything you feel like except for racist, homophobic or sexist slurs — and especially not to the press. You just don’t. Let’s try an exercise: Say you think of something that maybe isn’t the most PC thing in the world. Do you: A. Say it out loud. B. Keep it to yourself. C. Write it in a journal which you then burn. If you answered B or C, you would be correct! If you answered A, well, then, you’re an idiot.
You would think that keeping your possibly-racist/homophobic inner-feelings about those different than you buried way deep down is a basic known fact at this point. After all, you’ve watched your less-savvy brethren fall this year —Paula Deen, Alec Baldwin, Phil Robertson, to name just a few — but no. Not so. The latest to fall victim to their own inability to just STFU?Evander Holyfield, who is making a splash with his stay on “Celebrity Big Brother” thanks to an extended rant he recently let out on his views about homosexuality, describing it as “a choice” that “ain’t normal” and can be fixed.
“If you were born and your leg were turned this way, what would you do? You go to the doctor and get it fixed back, right?” he said to a fellow house-mate. “You know how handicapped people are born? You can’t say because they are born that way you can’t move that.”
Producers for the series quickly addressed the issue, saying in a statement that they’d relayed to Holyfield that his views “could be seen as extremely offensive to many people. He was warned to think carefully about repeating them.”
Good lord. Come on, Evander. You lost an ear. You must know what it feels like to be different. Shut it down!
Whew. We good? Good.
Sincerely,
Dorothy
