Da Brat says her joke about a potential Black sperm donor was “taken way out of context.”
The rapper addressed the controversy during an appearance on the Tamron Hall Show, where she and her wife, Jesseca “Judy” Dupart, shed more light on their pregnancy journey. At one point during the sit-down, Da Brat was pressed about her recent interview with The Root, in which she explained their decision to go with a white donor. The 49-year-old told the publication that the pool of viable candidates was significantly reduced after her wife’s genetics screening, and that the only Black donor who was presented to them wasn’t up to her standards.
“That [dude] looked like Jiminy Cricket,” Brat said in an episode of the reality series Brat Loves Judy. “I was like, ‘I’m sorry but that wasn’t gonna be my choice.’ … But I think we did a great job with picking. He’s handsome, he’s tall, and I think he’s going to look beautiful with my wife’s egg.”
The comment immediately sparked backlash, as some believed the couple rejected the Black donor as a matter of genetic preference. Da Brat pushed back on the allegations while speaking to Hall, insisting she and her wife initially had their mind set on a Black donor.
“I didn’t think it would be offensive to anybody,” the rapper said about the “Jiminy Cricket” comment. “I cracked jokes about almost everybody that I saw, that one just happened to make it in the show. I wasn’t trying to be mean or say anything negative about Black people. We were looking for a Black donor. We’re Black, we wanted a Black donor. So it was just misconstrued and taken way out of context.”
She continued, “I had no idea people were going to be so offended, but I meant no harm whatsoever. We wanted a Black donor—I was just like, ‘What?’ People take things and run with it. … People who know me know that I didn’t mean any harm. So if I offended anybody, I do apologize. But it was a joke between me and my wife and the doctor, we joke like that, we play around, so it wasn’t meant to be offensive in any way.”
Dupart addressed the controversy in a May 3 Instagram post, when she acknowledged that her wife had made a “distasteful joke.”
Dupart told Hall that she tried to shield Da Brat from all the online hate, which she partly blamed on misleading headlines.
“I’m more on social than she is and there were things that I was really trying to avoid her from seeing,” she said. “They had comments that said, ‘I just hope you guys miscarry.’ … So I’m trying to delete a lot of stuff so she can’t see it on my page and she can’t see it on her page because it was extreme hate … Oh my god, if nothing else at this time, I feel like this should be at least an educational moment so our people aren’t as ignorant.”
You can check out the interview above.
