Hey, everybody, it is Friday, February thirteenth, and we are going to try our very best to get through this episode without laughing because it's a very serious topic. It's a very serious word. But we only get to all the controversy if we get through fart knocker and fart digger. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Knocker and digger knocker and digger knocker and digger. Someone messed up those two words and can you imagine
what words they came up with? And now she lost a job ro this You brought this to my attention, this story is well.
Yes, so if anyone is a fan of a very popular and it was supposed to be coming back in big fashion, this show called Rehab Addict. And we're not talking about drugs, We're talking about rehabbing Holmes. This is HGTV. I love a rehab show. It's so fun to watch. I have I've watched this show, not recently because it's been off the air for some time.
So this was a big deal.
Nicole Curtis, the host of Rehab Addict, made this big announcement they were coming back season ten nine or ten, was it nine.
Nine, but it hadn't been on since what twenty eighteen.
I believe, So this was a big deal and her new series was supposed to air Wednesday, coming out, big deal. She had it all over her Instagram, social media, and then record scratch a video is leaked to a tabloid website.
In that video and the headlines will tell you that Nicole Curtis uses the inWORD. Nicole Curtis uses a racial slur in video, and absolutely we can tell you she does. She doesn't deny it. You hear it, absolutely clearly. So it leaks and robes. HGTV reacted pretty.
Immediately, immediately, they did not even I mean it was an automatic response. Not only did they fire her, but they literally scrubbed the entire series.
She never existed.
It's gone. So actually we do have their statement, just to get it out there right now. HGTV was recently made aware of an offensive racial comment made during the filming of Rehab Addict. Not only is language like this hurtful and disappointing to our viewers, partners, and employees, it does not align with the values of HGTV. Accordingly, we have removed the series from all HGTV platforms. We remain dedicated to fostering a culture of respect and inclusion across
our content and our workplace. Here's the deal, though, she says that did not happen during the filming of rehab atte Oh, that this was her own personal behind the scenes video and it was shot there were just a few people in the room, and it happened four years ago.
Not a justification of any kind now at all, But she's making a point a clarification here. AGTV said it was during the filming of rehab Atic. She says, absolutely not. So she pointed clarity. Fine, but we have video you white lady saying the in word white lady on video canceled. Done nothing else to talk about.
Robes impossible to recover from. I would say, cannot and then hold your horses. And this is why we should talk, folks. There's context needed.
This is not a defense of what she did, but there is an understanding robes and a conversation and just pump of the breaks for a second and let's talk about what happened. So in this video you see her and she is at her home. Yes, I believe doing a renovation. I think she's going up on a ladder.
She's a ladder okay, with a nail gun or something.
And she's doing her thing, does something and then blurts out.
What robes fart N word, which is not a phrase people use. And then as soon as she says fart N word, you can see her gasp and go, oh my god, what did I just say?
Why did I just say that?
And to help if you haven't seen it, you might see it later, but it imagine making a mistake and you just go, oh shit. It's kind of how the context she said, oh fart inward sounds ridiculous, sounds childish, sound, sounds nothing made up. As soon as the in word comes out of her mouth, probably it was a millisecond, is that she said ooh?
She immediately gasped at herself, and that is clear on the video.
What was your reaction to seeing it mine?
Yeah, I am still laughing at the phrase, oh fart inward? What It's just silly, it's made up, doesn't make any sense. Look, the N word we've talked about this here, doesn't get me worked up because anybody uses it towards me. I know, I've just won that fight because you're an idiot, so that's just not a big deal. I don't get offended hearing it is not the first thing I do is to get outraged and oh my goodness, what does this
woman doing a stupid silly phrase. I am not defending that or getting onto HGTV for reacting how they did. But Robes, I was so curious you. I think you told me this, and I think Gabby Bernstein told you this first. Get curious. What happens if you get curious first and don't have your first reaction be emotional, and certainly our first emotions sometime I'll always say this country,
it's outrage. I was curious, what is this about? And then once we start digging into it, Robes, the story took a weird turn to me.
It did because and you actually have to dig define this. I will say, her and we can get into her official statements aren't about making excuses. She and we can She says all the right things.
I took an issue with a couple things. We'll get into it. Oh yes, right, okay, okay.
But then upon digging you can hear some other reactions that she gave. And I thought this one was really interesting. Because a lot of people say this that came out of your mouth too easily, right, That was the first thing a lot of folks said.
Now, that is the first thing I went to because one of the things will say in her statement that she it's not in her vocabulary. That is hard to get your head around, because they're just all of us have words in our lives that will not come out of our mouths. We are just not programmed, and you can't say it. I have some things. I have gay friends that say things to each other. Ain't no way in hell I could even accidentally slip up and say it.
You can't accidentally say the in word unless it was in there.
Correct, That is what everyone is saying. But listen to what she said, and it's actually interesting And to your point about getting curious. When I read this and we read it together, all of a sudden, you felt a little shift right in how you're feeling about her.
She said.
You ask, how did that just easily come out? I don't have an answer for that. It did, and it shocked me. As shown now you ask, what were you even saying? I throw words to I throw together words. This is documented on fifth teen years of TV interviews posts of these random words, my most famous son of a beehive digger, which took the place of SOB when I became a mommy and could not swear on TV. In recent years, I've added fart digger, fart knocker.
It's documented, here we go, here we go, fart digger, fart knocker, fart bigger, fart knocker.
So they are claiming, and one of the problems I had with some of the statements was one that came from our team. But they were saying she was exhausted, it was a long day, and something came out of her mouth, slipped up and it happened. Here's the thing, ropes. I've seen that happen to a bunch of people I have. And you say that sometimes you say a word, not even a word. I've seen it happen. That makes it.
I am not excusing. I saw what happened, and I see this white leg's saying the in word clear as day. But context matters, right, There's a reason we have first degree, second degree, third degree murder, and manslaughter. It's not all the same. She didn't look at somebody and called them the inn word. She wasn't making a reference to somebody she said a very very stupid, silly, little nothing phrase.
Now it's a convenient excuse, I think some would argue, but it takes a little bite off of a headline that say she's fired for racial slur exactly.
And when she says that word is not a part of my vocabulary. When you hear her saying she basically she's saying she accidentally conflated the two words, you could understand why then she would say that word is not a part of my vocabulary, because it doesn't make any sense for her to have said that and for us to have clearly heard her or hear her saying the N word. Clearly it isn't her vocabulary because she said
it out loud. But when she explains that she conflated two words, that maybe explains why she put it that way.
Is that actually makes sense. I didn't like. We'll say her first. Her statement from her team says she takes responsibility regardless of context. She said what occurred was a clear slip of the tongue, a mistaken version of one of her well known expressions, spoken after seventeen hours of physically demanding work and very little sleep. Eh that's fine to try to explain. I don't like too much of the explaining away. This is what happened. She is sorry.
Leave it at that. However, she was tired though, guys, Okay, so she's tired, so slurs come out. Give her a break. That's how I read. That's how I didn't like.
That is how it actually sounds. Yes, and that is annoying and infuriating. I'm sure to many many people.
I don't sleep much at all. You should hear the slurs I throw around.
Like come on, no, no, because they didn't provide the context.
They said one of her well known phrases that didn't really give the context that was needed to back up what they were saying.
Art digger and fart knocker.
Yes, and so she has made some follow up statements because as you can imagine, look, this all came to a head yesterday, I believe, and she is saying we are going to hear more from her today, so we can get into that in just a bit. But she has made some follow up statements, and she said there is more to this, but my family comes first, and I need to be mom right now more than anything else. I will take the time to be as I've always
been with you, transparent and honest. TMZ called me as I had just turned my phone on after being at school. I said this briefly, but there is more. I am sorry. I am filled with remorse and regret just as much as I was one second after that word was said four years ago.
In twenty twenty two.
I show this, I say this, and I realize you are getting a limited view as what has been circulating is a clip of my footage.
It is that was stolen, then manipulated.
It is edited, oh.
And sold to a tabloid to coincide with my return to television, only to create this chaos of hate, anger and disappointment.
And she is correct in the timing.
It does exactly what it feels like, and for whatever reason, I sympathize with that. This is time to take this woman down. Now. My questions are about manipulated and edited. What is she trying to suggest there? I mean, we heard this come out of his mouth. That's a little okay, we'll see what that ends up being. But I don't know what she could possibly mean by that. If there's more context they've given us the context, I don't know what else we need to understand.
She says she plans to release the full video from the filming, which she said happened at her home.
It was her footage.
She says she is going to release the full video unedited on Friday, which is today. Then she says she is going to go live on social media to address the situation. She didn't give it time, but that is bold. You know, if you go on in Instagram live or whatever she's planning, however she's planning to do it, you got comments coming up, and so if you know she's trying to do damage control at this point, I don't know if it's going to work. Have you ever seen anybody survive something like this.
I don't. I don't know. You could survive being tried for murder easier than you can survive a Twitter scandal. And I I encourage this not a matter of defending her, but I will be an advocate for context and patience and understanding and humanity and learning before we just react with outrage. There was a headline that said, this woman is fired. Bro, it's because she used a racial slur. If your first reaction is hell, yeah, let me get online. Put in my two sense before you read and understand
exactly what happened. This is and some I hear this and say, TJ, you're a black man standing here defending a woman who said the N word. Yeah, what I'm doing is defending the truth of the matter that we always skim over, skip over because it doesn't fit into a two hundred and eighty character statement that we want to make. Context is important here, she messed up. I don't know what's in this woman's heart, but I'm not gonna assume it's the bad thing, and I'm not assuming
it's the good thing. I just don't know. So therefore, Robes, let's talk about it. Let's have proper context and move on.
I mean, it's so wonderful to hear you say something like that, because that is what's needed in this instance and in so many others, because we all just read headlines, assume the worst, and love to demonize other people. It just makes us feel superior morally, makes us feel better than that person, and so we actually, I think psychologically, just our egos just jump right on that headline and just assume it's all true, because that makes us feel less guilty about anything we've done.
In our lives, robes this one. I don't this here's the thing, never seen the show, didn't know her name, finding out about her now she might be the worst human. She might be dropping inwards left and right behind the scenes for all these years. But all I know is this one incident. And taking just this incident in context, robes, we hear a lot of people make excuses when things happen. We know how to read. Okay, they're trying to find a way out of it with this statement. This one's
from their lawyer, and this from the publicist. And we've this is not that. This is not just came up out of the blue with some stupid excuse. I don't know how I said that word. She's actually got a documented foolishness that comes out of her mouth. You had me when you said part knocker and part digger.
We started laughing. Wait to what that just say? So stay with us, ere, folks, We're not done.
I will tell you the part of her statement that did make my skin crawl just a little bit. Also, let's finally say it out loud. Can you ever forgive a white person for being caught saying the in word. We continue here on Amy and TJ coming back from the break talking about certainly the heaviness of a white woman being caught on camera saying the in word. Every time we come back from a commercial break here with Robot and I say, hey, you got anything? Who wants
to start on this one? Robot is like, you take it please.
And it's funny because you talked about and we haven't had this conversation beforehand. What made your skin crawl? What made you cringe when you read her statement? I knew exactly what you were referencing. Anytime anyone a white person references inner city or urban area, you know what they're actually saying, and it's it's it probably should be avoided at all costs.
I don't know what, don't know her at all, don't know where her head is, where her heart is, and what she's done in her life. It's just this part of the statement in which she is giving her black credentials, if you will, She says, I'm here because I am not okay with the fact that I said that. I am and have been submerged in the African American community my entire adult life. I'm a mom of two children. I chose to live and work in the inner cities
of many major cities, but most famously Minneapolis and Detroit. Yes, I hear that word on a daily basis. People say it all around me. I listen to it in music. I'm not secluded to the I am the white, small blonde in the neighborhood. Who knows that's a word that represents evil, pain, torture, trauma when used by someone like me, And yet it came from me.
Yeah, she's saying, Hey, I'm not you know, this white woman who is in a suburban bubble of whiteness.
I actually live in a diverse community.
I'm aware of the issues, but I don't even know how that plays into any of this.
I understand she's in defense mode.
I understand being called a racist is something that you actually almost never can undo, and so she's desperately trying to say I have put myself in a diverse community to be more aware. But that actually is completely beside the point. If she actually just conflated words because she's a silly talker and she got frustrated a moment and accidentally put in N where a D was supposed to be, Well, okay, that I'll accept or it's not even for me to accept.
But it's understandable.
You can understand that there's no need to go into a larger conversation about where she lives, who her friends are. I got black friends. I live in a community, in a street where there are black people. I mean, that is what she's saying, But that doesn't have it. She's trying to defend her character and her integrity and that she's not just this ignorant white person who doesn't associate with people of color. That's what she's trying to say. Obviously it's cringing.
I don't know the lady and them all of that might be true. Yeah, felt it felt very icky to be giving black credentials in this moment. But again, and maybe she's all that stuff is true, robes, but can you can we ever, ever, ever, can a white person ever be forgiven? I don't know if white celebrity is caught on video at a club singing and dancing to a Kendrick Lamar song and just blurts out the N word every time Kendrick says it, are you? Are you going down for that as a racist? And that's a
serious hypothetical that I'm giving. Well, I think only what can't what will society do to that person?
Well, I don't think a white person can answer that question.
Well, the answer is I think society would absolutely come after that person, would absolutely persecute that person, would want to hear nothing else. And maybe that's the case. Can a white person ever say the N word in any type of context other than in a Quentin Tarantino movie and not be canceled?
Right because you're reading a script from a character that isn't you.
That would be the only way, and even then that would be borderline.
The only person who I think could probably do it is President Trump.
Damn, oh my god. And again we're not suggesting he will, but we're saying that is the most outlandish racial thing you can blurt out. Can you ever come back from that? But to your point, rote so much about racism and the talk of racism and things that are being allowed to be said. Now some people feel a freedom to do so, they feel a comfort and doing so. And how long does that bar keep moving to where now this word becomes mainstream.
And to it well, that would be just so disturbing. But to your point, this is going to be interesting. We don't know how big this may blow up. It may blow over not for her, she's almost certainly done, but in her effort to try and redeem herself or find some way to.
To uncancel herself.
Will this be something that because of the political environment we're in and what we've been seeing over this past year, will there be a rallying cry in her defense? Will this become something more than it is right now?
I don't know.
I hope it doesn't, But I started thinking about that, like, where does this story go from here? And she is going to continue her defense today, and look, I think she has every right to do so. I understand her need to do so. And it's just we will be watching to see where this conversation you just.
I just sank because you just made me remember something that you'll remember as well. That woman raised about a million dollars on whatever go fundme type website after she was caught on video repeatedly calling a.
Child child.
And that is a very different story totally obviously than the one we're talking about, and yet they're both lumped into the same category.
She had defenders to the point they raised a million dollars horrific for her horrific that is, I will never now offend or say, well, let's look for some context in that this other situation is not that at all. Be mad, Be okay, she got fired. No, I'm not defending that word coming out of her mouth at all. When I am attacking. Is the way the story is being reported. The context that is me and sometimes robes hour as society lack of willingness to understand and have
your first reaction be something other than outrage. I love the Gabby Bernstein thing you keep pointing to pass it along. It's so it calms you when you hear something and your first thing is to go is to be curious before you're mad. Man.
It does wonders, It really does, and you can apply it to almost everything in your life, even from someone cutting you off in traffic. Get curious. Maybe his mom is sick, maybe he just got fired. Maybe he is racing to the hospital because he got word that his daughter.
Was in an accident.
You don't know what people are going through, and so yes, in this situation, in your personal situation, get curious instead of immediately reacting with a fence and anger.
Ultimately, world, I don't know what to do. What are we supposed to do with a lady that we hear say the N word, but then has somewhat of a plausible reason why she might have conflated words and that came out. What are we supposed to do? Am I supposed to really just say? Well, then word came out of a white lady's mouth. Done with you? You're a racist. That can't be our reactions to everything and everyone. It is great that we're talking about race. It is just
not that black and white. It's just nuts and we have folks. We always appreciate you spending some time with us. For my dear Amy Robach, I am T. J. Holmes. We'll talk to y'allso