It may be a little too late, but American Idol 13 finalist, Caleb Johnson, has apologized for calling fans who sent him song suggestions “retarded.” He posted an apology message on his Facebook Saturday night.
For the record that juvenile comment I made in the interview was not directed towards my fans but to the wackos that send hundreds of hate messages a day to me ! You guys are amazing and I cannot thank you enough for your support. Sorry if it offended anybody it was the wrong choice of words . Also I greatly appreciate it when you guys give me song suggestions but it gets really overwhelming at the volume it comes in so please understand ! Rock on !:)
Eh. He’s backpedalling. He didn’t call out haters. He was very explicit about what bugged him. Receiving song suggestions via social media got on his nerves.
“I don’t really enjoy having to see somebody telling me what song I have to sing…” Haters don’t bother with song suggestions, KWIM? Fans have always tweeted song suggestions to their favs with the best intention. It’s less about feeling they know what’s best for their Idol, than wanting to hear a song they love covered by their fav.
Eh. This little controversy never even entered the news cycle. Caleb should be thankful that no one, except the most diehard, cares about Idol anymore.
Also, no matter WHO it is directed to, calling someone a r*tard is never cool. Not that Caleb seems to get that, even after the outcry over the use of the word. A PR person would have taken a big red pen to that apology.
He needed to show some real remorse for offending people, that he’d learned something from the backlash, and was in the process of educating himself about people with special needs. Also, a promise that he would work hard to be more sensitive to people’s feelings in the future would have been nice. An apology dashed off in 5 minutes isn’t going to cut it.
