Last week was a good one for “Weird Al” Yankovic. His new record Mandatory Fun is projected to do very well in first-week album sales, and his string of music video parodies has launched him back into the pop culture nexus. But yesterday he took a quick break from the party to apologize for using a “highly offensive slur” in one of his songs.
In “Word Crimes,” his parody of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” Yankovic offers the lyrics: “Saw your blog post/It’s really fantastic/That was sarcastic (Oh, psych!)/‘Cause you write like a spastic.”
The use of the word “spastic” has offended some in the United Kingdom, where the word is a derogatory term for those with cerebral palsy. The term has been dubbed “ablesist.”
So Yankovic took to Twitter to diffuse the situation, saying he had no idea the word had a hateful connotation.
If you thought I didn’t know that “spastic” is considered a highly offensive slur by some people… you’re right, I didn’t. Deeply sorry.
— Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) July 20, 2014
Meanwhile, the Mandatory Fun promo parade is expected to release its eighth and final video later today, and the album is expected to be Yankovic’s best-charting album ever.
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