NBC Apologizes For Jane Fonda Saying "C**t" On "Today"

UPDATE 4:40 PM EASTERN: "Vagina Monologues" playwright Eve Ensler spoke to "Access Hollywood" and expressed her disappointment that NBC censored Fonda saying "cunt" during the west coast broadcast of this morning's show.

"Let me just say something about that word," she said. "The whole point of the play is to reclaim that word, and to make that word beautiful, and to make that word powerful, and not denigrating, and not ugly."

ORIGINAL POST: NEW YORK — NBC News is apologizing again _ this time for Jane Fonda. The 70-year-old actress used a vulgar slang term on the "Today" show Thursday while talking about the play "The Vagina Monologues." Fonda is appearing in a 10th-anniversary performance and was on "Today" with author Eve Ensler.

Fonda told co-host Meredith Vieira that she was asked to perform a monologue with a slang term for vagina as the title — and Fonda used the term itself on the air in explaining why she said "no."

"I said, `I don't think so, I've got enough problems,'" Fonda said.

About 10 minutes later, Vieira told viewers that Fonda had used a word from the play that normally isn't used on television.

"It was a slip and obviously she apologizes and so do we," Vieira said. "We would do nothing to offend the audience, so please accept that apology."

"Today" moved quickly to silence the word and cover up Fonda's face with a still photo when the show was aired in the Midwest, Mountain and West Coast feeds.

It's been a month's worth of apologies for NBC News, owned by General Electric Co. MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews said he was sorry for suggesting that the reason Hillary Clinton was a presidential candidate was because of her husband's infidelities. MSNBC correspondent David Shuster was suspended for two weeks for saying the Clintons had "pimped out" daughter Chelsea for presidential campaigning.

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Watch the clip:

Watch Meredith's apology:

Comments

[SmootyBooty]

04:16 PM on 02/18/2008

Why doesn't anyone admit that Jane was merely talking about Hllary?

[SILVANUS]

03:19 PM on 02/18/2008

I'd rather NBC APOLOGIZE for getting behind a jackal president and a senseless war thathas killed thousands of soldiers here and foreign men, women and children than flinch at an over 60 woman using a foul word we have all heard in R rated films, at least.

GET REAL.

[ColoradoDan]

10:28 PM on 02/17/2008

Sheeshhhh ... it is just a word.

T'ain't like she invaded and occupied a country illegally or anything.

Spunky lady.

[bookerone]

05:04 PM on 02/17/2008

When I hear NBC apologize for the sexist language that is used nightly on MSNBC by Chris, Tucker, Russ, and the whole dang gang of men about Hillary then I will believe it as for the word Jane used, well obviously Meredith and her producers haven't seen the play.

[truthyguy]

03:32 PM on 02/17/2008

Fonda needs the publicity. Think she was going to get it (i.e., would you have written anything about her?) if she went on the show and simply said she was in the Vagina Monologues and she hoped everyone would come an see it? No one would have taken note. Now look at the publicity and controversy because she said cunt on TV. A pure accidental slip on her part - I am sure. Yeah, right.

[Kottenpicker]

02:37 PM on 02/17/2008

On election night 2000, Jack Welch, CEO of GE, marched into NBC news headquarters and demanded they call the election for Bush. Where the hell is the apology for that?

[isis]

12:02 PM on 02/17/2008

It is not a vulgar slang term. That's the point. But let's just not talk about it. We all know how well that works.

[kash79]

10:52 AM on 02/17/2008

THANK GOD- A LADY SAID IT; IF IT WAS A MAN ALL THESE FEMINIST FRE*KS WOULD HAVE A FIELD DAY.

JUST CHILL- THEY'RE GONNA SAY SORRY FOR EVERYTHING NOW- MAY BE THEY SHOULD SAY SORRY NOT FOR USING A WORD OR TWO BUT FOR NOT REALLY REPORTING ON ISSUES

[bernarda]

08:14 AM on 02/17/2008

Chaucer had no problem with the word, from Wiki,

"The word appears several times in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (c. 1390), in bawdy contexts, but it does not appear to be considered obscene at this point, since it is used openly. A notable use is from the Miller's Tale "Pryvely he caught her by the queynte." The Wife of Bath also uses this term, "For certeyn, olde dotard, by your leave/You shall have queynte right enough at eve . . . What aileth you to grouche thus and groan?/Is it for ye would have my queynte alone?" In modernised versions of these passages the word "queynte" is usually translated simply as "cunt"

[transendentilist]

12:13 PM on 02/17/2008

Henry Miller had no problem with it. His book, The Tropic of Cancer, has the word all through the book. It was not allowed to be published in America for nearly 30 years. How silly!

[transendentilist]

01:39 PM on 02/17/2008

Henry Miller used that term all through his book, The Tropic of Cancer. It's one of my daughter's favorite books.

[swokm]

03:22 AM on 02/17/2008

Wait, if the struggle was to take back that word and make it "OK", then why apologize? This will be the first (and probably only) time I defend Jane Fonda, but Eve Ensler just completely ruined the entire point of her show. "On the 10th anniversary of the vagina monologues, we can't use other words for the va-jay-jay no-no parts because those parts are evil." Ridiculous PC B.S. She apparently cares more about money, access, and image than anything she wrote about.

[dax49]

02:20 AM on 02/17/2008

jane fonda is an american treasure

[dax49]

02:12 AM on 02/17/2008

they would be better served apologizing for tucker carlson and chris matthews

[esgabel]

10:32 PM on 02/16/2008

If there was a timed delay all they had to do was bleep...otherwise who cares...I think Jane Fonda, Mark Halperin and David Schuster should all check into the Canyon Ranch and announce they are in rehab--then we can welcome back all those luminaries who have used unusual terms in a relatively innocuous manner on TV.
We are all nuts!

[TOOO]

07:43 PM on 02/16/2008

Anyone who gets offended by the word "cunt" has obviously never been outside the borders of the United States.

But on the other hand, I was surprised to find that the Canadian Broadcasting Company will allow "shit" but not "fuck". Huh? I thought Canada was supposed to be, you know, AHEAD of the US.

(And I still don't know why they replaced the last two episodes of "Torchwood" with "MVP" - basically, the Canadian version of "Desperate Housewives." Would somebody please point out the logic?)

[TyroneTanic]

07:11 PM on 02/16/2008

See you next Tuesday!