Talk show host Oprah Winfrey says rapper T.I. should “hush” and stop talking about whether women are fit for the presidency.
“Are you kidding?” she said when TMZ asked about the musician’s recent remarks that women are unfit for the Oval Office.
{mosads}“You know what I say to that,” Winfrey said. “I want to say, ‘Honey child, hush your mouth, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’”
Winfrey also said T.I.’s apology for the comments following widespread public backlash was probably insincere.
“I don’t buy it,” she said of the rapper’s mea culpa. “You know it’s not true.
“I think people just like to talk,” Winfrey added about T.I.’s take on gender in politics.
T.I. sparked outrage during a recent interview by vowing that he “can’t vote for the leader of the free world to be a woman.”
“I just know that women make rash decisions emotionally — they make very permanent, cemented decisions — and then later, it’s kind of like it didn’t happen or they didn’t mean for it to happen,” he told host DJ Whoo Kid on the radio host’s show, “The Whoolywood Shuffle.”
“I think you might be able to get the Loch Ness Monster elected before you could [a woman],” T.I. added. “It’s not right, but I’m just saying I don’t think.”
T.I. was addressing whether he would back Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton for the White House in 2016.
He apologized on Tuesday for his remarks.
“My comments about women running for president were unequivocally insensitive and wrong,” T.I. tweeted. “I sincerely apologize to everyone I offended.”
T.I. apologized shortly before Clinton and the other 2016 Democratic contenders met in Tuesday night’s inaugural Democratic presidential debate.
Winfrey admitted on Wednesday that she hadn’t watched the broadcast from Las Vegas on CNN.
“I haven’t seen the debate yet,” she said. “I didn’t go to the debate.
“I went to see Lupita [Nyong’o] in ‘Eclipsed,’ ” Winfrey added, referencing the actress and her new play in New York City about a civil war in Liberia. “That’s what I did last night.”