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Stephen Colbert attacks Tucker Carlson over leaked comments: 'I think R Kelly just got a character witness'

Fox News host refuses to apologise for a number of offensive comments made on his shock jock radio show between 2006 and 2011

Roisin O'Connor
Tuesday 12 March 2019 06:44 EDT
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Stephen Colbert slams Tucker Carlson's refusal to apologise for misogynistic comments

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Stephen Colbert has taken aim at Tucker Calrson's controversial, resurfaced remarks about statutory rape and a comment where he called women "primitive".

Recordings from the Fox News host's shock jock show Bubba the Love Sponge, which originally aired between 2006 to 2011, were published by progressive media watchdog Media Matters for America.

They see Carlson cover a wide range of topics, including a clip from 2007 where he compared women to dogs, claiming: "They're extremely primitive, they're basic, they're not hard to understand. And one of the things they had more than anything is weakness in a man."

He is also heard calling TV host Alexis Stewart "c***y", Britney Spears and Paris HIlton "whores", and Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan "unnatractive". He also defended Warren Jeffs, president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Chris of Latter-Day Saints, who was convicted on two counts of child sexual assault in 2011.

In a statement, Carlson refused to apologise and said "anyone who disagrees with my views is welcome to come on and explain why".

In the Late Show host's second monologue, Colbert went in on Carlson and said he had been saying "just awful stuff for years".

"Sure, women are primitive," he said. "In that many of them right now want to throw Tucker Carlson into a volcano."

"By the way. Bubba the Love Sponge, the least effective method of contraception. The most effective? Tucker Carlson."

Of Carlson's comments about Kagan, he joked that the US must "maintain" standards of beauty on the Supreme Court: "Mm, Justice Breyer, break me off a piece of that... or just wait a bit, something will fall off."

Addressing Carlson himself, he added: "Yes, let's be honest, you're awful on so many levels. But on the positive side, I think R Kelly just got a character witness."

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