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.

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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

[hiprogloho]

Leave Miss Fonda alone. The C word is the sexiest of the dirty words. It's a turn on. Only prude, sexually repressed nutjobs get overly offended. Let's here more Jane...

[rektruax]

No problems here. I could listen to Jane Fonda say "cunt" all day...

Let's be frank... The only people who would have a problem are overly protective parents who fear they might actually have to talk to their kids.

[Paw1]

She was referring to a part of the show as a proper name. If NBC doesn't want its talk show guests to say "cunt", perhaps they should reconsider having the author of the VAGINA MONOLOGUES on the program...

Having said that, I'm sure the FCC will levy some ridiculous fine in the name of "decency".

[RJVegas]

Reminds me of another play "Much Ado About Nothing."

[crablover]

Yes, God forbid NBC should offend the audience with the "c" word! Now if we could only get NBC to stop offending our intelligence with their lousy programs!

Rev. Dobson's band of Christian censors must have had a stroke and flooded NBC with calls. (I'm sorry the director missed calling the close-up shot Ms. Viera's reaction.)

Unfortunately, Jane's slip gave the Bush administration's FCC the ammunition to attack NBC, something they've been wanting to do for a long time.

"For the sake of the children," the Bushies will hit NBC with a huge fine, but the telecom companies will get immunity from prosecution for helping the government spy on us! What the fuck is wrong with this country?

[Lazslo]

Oh my goodness. All I've read here on HuffPo is that people who used that word were misogynists. So Jane Fonda is a misogynist too? There sure are a lot of misogynists on TV lately.

[FadeIn]

As I write this, there are 69 comments pending. Kind of ironic, don't you think? It's just a fucking word. America's easily-offended need to get over themselves.

[nammy50]

I love it when an elderly relative suddenly uses an inappropriate word at a family gathering. Really spices up an otherwise dull time.

Today show could certainly use some spicing up!

I love you Jane!

[TheInsomniac]

OMG! If we say cunt the terrorists will win! Now the question is whether HuffPo will censor my post...

[Paulo]

Once again a Hollywood celeb just gives the right wingers more ammunition to bluster that all lefties or dems are immoral and intemperant. As a moderate independent that leans to the dems on most issues I have to say that this kind of stuff in public just shoots us in the foot. Please some of us remembe what it was like before we "dumbed down" and let MTV make us all look like crazies. Enough of the vulgar slang and Christian baiting-it doesn't help and we need to win in 08. Grow up people.

[TrustYourGut]

The people who need to grow up are those who explode over the use of a word that describes a body part, but aren't the least bit offended to support or watch people kill and maim each other.
The people who need to grow up are those that find the body offensive, but don't find discrimination, fraud, price-gouging, invasion of privacy, hunger, poverty, (and so much more) to be outlandish.
What a topsy turvy world....

[Snowspot]

Maybe you need to grow up? They are just words, words we all use.. and if you don't... ITS JUST A WORD.

[zendem1]

Oh please. It's only a word. God doesn't mind.

[nopartygal]

You grow up. Get real. Chill out. Big deal! You give them the ammo and the power by allowing this to even make a blip on the stratosphere. If everyone just shrugged and laughed it off (which is all it warrants anyway), this would be a non-issue (which it essentially is). You and your uptight ilk are the ones who allow this to become a big discussable issue and hence there will be lots of air time with scandalized oohs and aahs spent on it when, in fact, it should be (is) no big deal.

[totalliberal]

So accept the name of a republican political action group against Hillary? C.U.N.T.

[JerseyBob]

George Carlin knows!.

[ginnypoo]

So many 'dirty' words are female terms.....and there is no sexism, yea, okay.

[caracas]

This was a word used in proper context to describe a passage in a play (no double entendre intended.) No apology should be necessary.

[tiedtothewhippingpost]

right.

[krayonc]

I sooo agree. Apologize to who anyway? Parents? You couldn't PAY any kids I know to watch the Today show. I don't mean that as an insult, just "keepin it real"..lol

I thought Jane was funny as hell. Break a leg!

[DMcD]

I quite agree. Further , this highly hypocritical and psuedo-puritanical society we live in is all to quick to condemn the slightest of infractions while , at the same time , allowing things like torture and serious crime in government to go on, unabaited. Get a grip , phonies.
.

[oldtree]

it is a noun. it is commonly used, has been for many years. Are they trying to give it godlike status and make it a curse word? like jesusf(*^&)christ or god(^&)]%f&^(&*(ingdamn
and it wasn't even used in the offensive manner?
O Censor, O Critic, like the appendix, another of the useless things to help the infirm make up their pea brain.

[Brebro]

actually oldtree the word Cunt is an English language vulgarism.

[transendentilist]

It's still a noun.

[Bystander]

Then by your logic, the "N" word is just a noun for blacks. And "fag" is just a noun for homosexuals. Is that your logic, and do you condone the use of these words? Or is it just that the "C" word was uttered by a raging liberal and, therefore, is OK?

[Wintergreen4President]

And P.S., it's said on cable television all the time so what's the big deal about?

[MalloMel]

I don't see what all the fuss is about. It just a word that speaks to what a little more than half the people in this world have. Someone tell me where I'm wrong here.

[FeloniouslyAnnoying]

The pussy monologues will not "reclaim" one of the best and filthiest words in the English language and make it safe. Cunt is a beautiful word, partially because it is so god damn filthy.

[AZDemocrat500]

This is certainly not newsworthy and please do not try to compare this to David Schuster's comments.

[ResistanceisFutile]

What fifth grader hasn't heard the term cunt?

As fifth graders in catholic school we refered to the nuns as mean ass cunts!