Clearing the air. Mario Lopez apologized for a controversial statement he made about children transitioning.
“The comments I made were ignorant and insensitive, and I now have a deeper understanding of how hurtful they were,” Lopez, 45, said in a statement issued to Us Weekly on Wednesday, July 31. “I have been and always will be an ardent supporter of the LGBTQ community, and I am going to use this opportunity to better educate myself. Moving forward I will be more informed and thoughtful.”
Lopez made headlines after his thoughts on children identifying as transgender surfaced during a recent appearance on The Candace Owens Show. When the conservative commentator mentioned that Charlize Theron’s 7-year-old child Jackson identifies as a girl, the Extra alum referred to the practice as a “weird trend” occurring in Hollywood that he is “blown away” by.
“I’m never one to tell anyone how to parent their kids, obviously, and I think if you come from a place of love, you really can’t go wrong,” the Access host continued. “But at the same time, my God, if you’re 3 years old and you’re saying you’re feeling a certain way or you think you’re a boy or a girl or whatever the case may be, I just think it’s dangerous as a parent to make this determination then, ‘Well, OK, then you’re going to a boy or a girl,’ whatever the case may be.”
The former Saved by the Bell star then said the trend was “sort of alarming” as he noted how he could “just think about the repercussions later on” for the kids.
Lopez’s comments led to a wave of backlash from many across social media, including Queer Eye star Karamo Brown. The 38-year-old tweeted about being “disappointed to read” Lopez’s remarks on Wednesday, but he argued that he did not believe the host “should be ‘canceled.’” Brown instead proposed that Lopez “should be given the opportunity to learn why his comments are harmful to trans youth and their parents.”
Brown’s Queer Eye costar Jonathan Van Ness also took aim at Lopez. “If you’re not raising a child who is part of the LGBTQ+ community you should really be quiet,” Ness, 32, tweeted Wednesday. “You don’t need to understand what you do not know. You both need to do better, your causal transphobia is par for the course. Christianity says leave judgment to God.”
Lopez shares three children with wife, Courtney Laine Mazza: Gia, 8, Dominic, 5, and Santino, three weeks.
