An appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show to promote the movie Crash has left some debris in its wake with one of the film’s stars.
While appearing on the show alongside fellow cast members, rapper Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, who played one of two carjackers in the Oscar-winning picture about race relations, ended up trying to defend his use of the N-word. He tells GQ magazine that most of the arguments he laid before Oprah – who is strongly against use of the word in any context – were mysteriously left out of the show when it aired.
"She edited out a lot of my comments while keeping her own in," Ludacris said in an interview. "Of course, it's her show, but we were doing a show on racial discrimination, and she gave me a hard time as a rapper when I came on there as an actor.”
Winfrey has her own rules when it comes to promoting rappers on her show. Although Kanye West was recently a guest, hip hop artists are not usually invited as guests on the program.
"I don't see why people like Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, who I am huge fans of, it's OK for them to go on Oprah. They speak the same language as I do, but they do it through comedy, so I guess that's acceptable,"
Ludacris said that Oprah approached him privately backstage after the show to explain her actions.
"After the taping, she pulled me into a room and we had a five-minute conversation," he said. "What I got was that by having rappers on her show, she feels like she is empowering in them. It was like being at someone’s house who doesn’t really want you there."
While appearing on the show alongside fellow cast members, rapper Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, who played one of two carjackers in the Oscar-winning picture about race relations, ended up trying to defend his use of the N-word. He tells GQ magazine that most of the arguments he laid before Oprah – who is strongly against use of the word in any context – were mysteriously left out of the show when it aired.
"She edited out a lot of my comments while keeping her own in," Ludacris said in an interview. "Of course, it's her show, but we were doing a show on racial discrimination, and she gave me a hard time as a rapper when I came on there as an actor.”
Winfrey has her own rules when it comes to promoting rappers on her show. Although Kanye West was recently a guest, hip hop artists are not usually invited as guests on the program.
"I don't see why people like Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, who I am huge fans of, it's OK for them to go on Oprah. They speak the same language as I do, but they do it through comedy, so I guess that's acceptable,"
Ludacris said that Oprah approached him privately backstage after the show to explain her actions.
"After the taping, she pulled me into a room and we had a five-minute conversation," he said. "What I got was that by having rappers on her show, she feels like she is empowering in them. It was like being at someone’s house who doesn’t really want you there."
