During an interview this morning with Meredith Vieira, Kayla Manson, a thirteen year old girl charged as an accomplice in the beating of a middle school student in Florida, used some foul language, the “c-word,” twice in describing text messages between the victim and her attacker:
Vieira: Did you see the [text message] where he threatened her, to kill her?
Manson: No.
AdvertisementVieira: You did not. Which ones did you see?
Manson: The one where she calls him a rapist and she calls him a c*nt — I mean he calls her a c*nt.
Vieira: We just have to be careful with our language a little, but that’s all right, sweetheart.
Fifteen minutes later, Vieira offered an apology for the comments in the segment:”I want to apologize to the audience at home for the rough language in that last segment, that last half-hour. It is really not Kayla’s fault. I asked her what was in the text message and she didn’t realize– she was giving me verbatim what was in it. She didn’t know there were certain words you can’t say on television. So anyway we do apologize.” Ann Curry added, “I thought you handled it very well, Meredith.”
An NBC spokesperson tells TVNewser, “We have removed the audio from our Central, Mountain and Pacific feeds, as well as online, and Meredith apologized on air.”
The show had to apologize in 2008 when Jane Fonda used the word on air.
The clip, which is bleeped online, is after the jump.