Kid Rock should know better, but he didn’t on Friday morning, decrying liberal comedian Joy Behar as “that bitch” during a live interview on the Fox News morning show Fox & Friends.
Fox News has made an organizational priority to cut down on inappropriate remarks by guests, under CEO Suzanne Scott’s leadership, and co-host Steve Doocy moved quickly to clear up Kid Rock’s mess.
Decrying “political correctness,” Rock said live from Nashville, “People need to calm down, get a little less politically correct. And, I would say, you know, love everybody, except — I’d say screw that Joy Behar bitch. … I mean lady. Lady.”
“You cannot say that,” Doocy told him immediately. “We apologize for that. Listen, she’s just got a different point of view than you do.”
Behar, as co-host of The View, has emerged as one of President Trump’s biggest critics, while Kid Rock has appeared with Trump at the White House.
Kid Rock said he was “joking” about Behar, but Doocy and his co-hosts made clear to Fox News viewers that the network did not condone the remark. “You apologize for that language, right?” Doocy asked him. “I did apologize for the language, not the sentiment,” he responded. “We don’t feel that way. We apologize for both,” Doocy said.
Doocy’s co-host Ainsley Earhardt apologized again after the segment ended. “We do need to apologize,” she said. “We don’t feel that way about Joy Behar. We don’t condone that language.”
While the network’s opinion and news hosts don’t insult Behar with such coarse language, she’s frequently been lambasted by primetime stars like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.
Behar will likely address the remark during Friday morning’s episode of The View.
This article originally appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.
