KTLA Reporter Apologizes To Cardi B For Saying She Promoted Violence At Protests

KTLA Reporter Apologizes To Cardi B For Saying She Promoted Violence At Protests

On Monday, Los Angeles news station KTLA aired a segment about celebrities’ responses to the protests over George Floyd’s murder. The channel included a clip from a video Cardi B posted, with reporter Doug Kolk commenting, “rapper Cardi B used her massive platform to promote the violence.”

After fans pointed this out to Cardi herself on Twitter, she came after KTLA and Kolk for misrepresenting her words. “KTLA SUCK MY DICK. I’m not promoting violence in promoting the PROTEST,” she tweeted. “@DougKolk why your no lip square head having ass ain’t put the part were I said to vote? You cottage cheese breath having bitch. Why don’t you post how a conservative Christian Trump supporter post my address and encourage people to loot my home (which by the way he goin to jail)?”

“I apologize to @iamcardib if I took her words out of context,” Kolk eventually tweeted in response. “I respect her for using her platform to connect with people during these difficult times and it was wrong of me to not let her full voice be heard. I will make sure that is corrected during my next segment.”

“I made the mistake of interpreting her post strictly on a surface level, and I knew I was wrong when the tweets started rolling in,” Kolk continued in another segment that aired on KTLA. “I can assure you there was no conspiracy and it wasn’t my intention to be misleading. It strictly came down to a man who needed an education lesson.”

Kolk added that he “unfairly categorized her words under the umbrella of promoting violence … And after rewatching the entire clip, I recognize she was voicing her frustrations as a minority woman suffering through decades of not being heard. I recognize now how I misconstrued her words. I ask Cardi and her faithful fanbase for forgiveness. And let this serve as a learning experience for me, not only as a journalist, but as a human being.”

This is what Cardi B said in the original video:

Seeing people looting and going extremely outraged, you know, it makes me feel like, “Yes! Finally! Finally motherfuckers gonna hear us now. Yeah.” … As much as people is so against it, at this point, I feel like I’m not against it even though it do scare me and I don’t want anybody to get hurt. But it’s just really frustrating. You wanna know why? Because police brutality been going on even way before I was born … Let’s say since Instagram started, how many peaceful protests have we seen? How many trending hashtags have we seen? These hashtags keep freaking repeating themselves … I’ve been doing police brutality videos every since my teeth been fucked up and the only shit that changed has been my fucking teeth … Another way for the people to take power, I don’t want to make everything political, but it is what it is. It’s by voting.

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