BET, Under Fire for Mocking Rape on Twitter, Apologizes

By Ellis Clopton

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – BET’s attempt to report on the latest news surrounding Kesha’s allegation of rape against her former producer Dr. Luke — namely that the accused had allegedly also physically assaulted fellow pop star Katy Perry  — has gotten the network and its Twitter account in hot water after users responded furiously to a Tweet caption that read, “Hide ya wife, hide ya kids, they raping er’body here! ALLEGEDLY!”

The since-deleted tweet was attached to a short BET Breaks video giving a rundown of the news. The network has also apologized, issuing a statement to Variety that reads: “BET Networks does not condone language that makes light of sexual assault.  This post should never have been written and we apologize for the post. We have deleted the tweet and are conducting an internal investigation of this serious matter.”

Responses to the tweet ranged from anger (“making fun of rape in general is TRASH”) to bafflement (“how did ANYONE think this type of language was okay?”) and screenshots of the offending tweet were shared far and wide on the social media platform.

Other users pointed out that Jamie Foxx, the host of the upcoming BET Awards, is currently facing scrutiny for an alleged sexual assault where he purportedly struck a woman in the face with his penis after she refused to perform oral on him. Foxx and his lawyer have both denied the allegations, and his lawyer has stated that, if the allegations were true, they wouldn’t be legally considered sexual assault in Nevada, where the alleged incident occurred, because the state defines sexual assault as involving “sexual penetration” i.e. “forcible rape.”

See screenshots of the offending tweet, as captured by PopCrave , below: