Rehab Addict the host Nicole Curtis is speaking out in a lengthy statement after HGTV canceled its show due to the N-word controversy.
RadarOnline published footage Wednesday, February 11, of Curtis, 49, using a racial slur, prompting HGTV to immediately pull new episodes. Rehab Addict it was supposed to start playing that day. According to the outlet, Curtis used the offensive word on the set of the home restoration show.
In a Thursday, February 12, post on Instagram, Curtis apologized for using the N-word in the clip but insisted that the video was private and not related to the HGTV show. He said the video was stolen and “fake” and vowed to release it on Friday, February 13. (Us Weekly (reached out to HGTV for comment on Curtis’ claims.)
“This is not a post I ever thought I’d write and I’ve written more times than I can count and it never seems to be enough,” Curtis began.
He continued, “There’s anger, there’s hate, there’s pain. I’m here to take it. I couldn’t hide it, I couldn’t ignore it, I was waiting for this to pass. I’ve been playing this over and over and watching the video and doing all this together to say the right thing, do the right thing after doing the worst.”
“I’m sorry. I’m full of regret and regret, just like I was one second after that word was said 4 years ago in 2022,” Curtis wrote. “I’m showing you this, I’m saying this and I know you’re getting a limited view, as a clip of MY video that was stolen and used, edited and sold was being circulated [a] tabloid to accompany my return to television to create this chaos of hatred, anger, disappointment.”
Curtis said he was “not making excuses” for the language seen in the video, writing, “I’m not [a] the victim. Nothing I say or do will take away that time from the last 4 years. I know it was wrong. This will never happen again.”
“I want to make it clear that I am not saying this because I was ‘caught’. I am here because I do not agree with the fact that I said that,” he continued. “I have been immersed and immersed in the African American community all my life. I am a mother of two children, I chose to live and work in the inner cities of big cities, but the most famous ones are Minneapolis and Detroit. Yes, I hear that name [a] every day, people say it around me, I listen to music, I don’t do it in the suburbs. I am a white, young blonde from the neighborhood who knows that the word represents evil, pain, abuse, trauma when used by someone like me. However, it occurred to me….”
Curtis went on to explain his burning tongue in the video, where he can be heard saying “fart [N-word]” while he seemed to be struggling with the adjustment part.
“You ask – how did that come about so easily. I don’t have an answer for that. It did and it scared me as shown. [were] what do you mean? I throw together words, this is written from 15 years of television, interviews, posts of these random words,” he wrote. [a] beehive digger’ that replaced SOB when I became a mother again [could] not profanity on television. [In] In recent years, I have added fart digger, fart knocker. It is written.”
Curtis continued his statement in the comments section of his post, writing about the impact the conflict has had on his children.
“I have disappointed many people including my children who I have to tell them, my youngest said don’t say that word and I had to say it. [I] he did,” he wrote.
Curtis said he would release “raw footage” of the moment on Friday, writing that he made a “mistake that I realized immediately and panicked.”
“I was afraid that this would ruin my career, no, I was afraid that I would put that bad name in the whole world,” he said. “Those were all my photos, my cameras, my house – it wasn’t for HGTV, not the show, no one could see the video – I didn’t want it there because it was a time of deep regret and shame. There was no fear of the network, etc. I didn’t want to hear that again – it’s that simple.”
“HGTV didn’t know because it was shot on my own time, what I did and the equipment. Nobody knew except the people in that room,” Curtis said. “Nobody had those pictures except me and my ex bf.”
Curtis ended his post by apologizing again for the use of a racial slur and noted that he was issuing a statement “outside of a PR company” and “against the advice of many people.”
“I’m sorry and I understand the pain, the anger,” he added.
