Pop singer Billie Eilish has apologized for using a racial slur against Asians.
She says she was around “13 or 14” when she mouthed the racist words as she sang along to Tyler, the Creator’s song “Fish.”
“I mouthed a word from a song that at the time I didn’t know was a derogatory term used against members of the Asian community. I am appalled and embarrassed and want to barf that I ever mouthed along to that word,” she said in a statement posted on her Instagram story.
In another video, she was accused of using a “blaccent.” She says she was not.
“It is absolute gibberish and just me goofing around, and is in NO way an imitation of anyone or any language, accent, or culture in the SLIGHTEST,” she wrote.
She continued, “Regardless of how it was interpreted, I did not mean for any of my actions to have caused hurt to others and it absolutely breaks my heart that it is being labeled now in a way that might cause pain to people hearing it.”