CeeLo Green Apologizes for Rape Tweets — Kind of

I'm not really sure what CeeLo Green is doing. Not even a day after Green deleted his Twitter because of the backlash from the "healthy exchange" he tried to have about the topic of rape and consent, he has returned to the Twitterverse with an apology ready. If, of course, you can call this an apology. Green pleaded no contest in a case in which he was accused of slipping ecstasy into a woman's drink without her knowledge or consent and then Green tweeted some incredibly offensive views on rape, including that people can only be raped if they remember having been raped and that people can't be raped if they're conscious. Now Green has returned with an apology for the tweets, but he's already getting it wrong.

"I truly and deeply apologize for the comments attributed to me on Twitter. Those comments were idiotic, untrue and not what I believe," reads the tweet that Green posted late Tuesday night. The bolded emphasis is mine. Instead of taking personal responsibility for his actions, Green side steps the blame in this apology by claiming that the comments that led to him deleting his Twitter — which numerous Twitter users and media outlets have screen caps of — are attributed to him rather than made by him. Attributed literally means other people have decided that he said it, which may or may not be true.

I could go through this tweet with a red pen and correct it so that it sounds like a more appropriate apology, maybe not one everyone would accept but at least one that would be a start, but instead I'm trying to focus on what Green is trying to say. One theory is that his Twitter was possibly hacked and it was a hacker who was posting the offensive comments and replies to his fans. Twitter hacks aren't exactly unheard of and there have been plenty this year alone. However, every celebrity who has had their Twitter hacked usually outright says that and nowhere in his apology tweet does Green make mention of someone else having taken over his feed.

Another theory is that Green really did tweet those messages, but as part of his "healthy exchange" he was just playing devil's advocate rather than spouting horrifying commentary about rape and consent that honestly reflect his real views. Admittedly, it was bad timing since he had just come off a trial in which he was accused of trying to remove a woman's ability to consent, but Green seemed to genuinely think he was opening up a dialogue by taking the side that he did. However, none of the tweets attributed to him bothered to add a disclaimer that this was not what Green really believed and he's just trying to encourage people to defend their views. At most, he just said his comments were somehow being taken out of context.

Honestly, I have no idea what Green was doing with the series of tweets that were "attributed to him" yesterday, but this latest one is an unacceptable apology for them. Especially since Green followed them two hours later with a plug to one of his songs. Considering the seriousness of the backlash against him, it felt way, way, way too soon for him to focus right back on his career and his music like nothing had happened. A better explanation of what had happened, and a display of a desire to learn from the mistake and educate himself, would have been a better apology.

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