Too soon. After Tokyo Jetz was dragged mercilessly by fans for joking about George Floyd’s death, the rapper issued a tearful apology and admitted she was ‘wrong as hell.’
“I’m sorry, I messed up big time,” Tokyo Jetz, 25, captioned the Instagram video she uploaded on June 1. The “No Problem” rapper issued an apology after a social media clip showed her placing a friend in a playful headlock. “I’ma go George Floyd your mothaf—in’ ass,” she says in the clip, referencing the man killed by Minneapolis police on May 25 after an officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Fans were unsurprisingly furious at her making light of George’s death, and in the wake of the backlash, dragging and canceling, she offered an apology. “Nothing excuses what I’ve said and done, but I do really want everyone to know I’m not proud of it and sincerely apologize.”
“I’m not doing this video to ask for no type of sympathy,” she says in the three-minute video, “because what I did was wrong as hell. First and foremost, I want to apologize to family, to people out on the front line, to the people who actually stand up for us.” She said she wasn’t trying to excuse her behavior. “I don’t want nobody to ever think that I don’t understand that I’m black as f—k. Nothing else, I can be never nothing else. I don’t want people to ever think that I don’t understand my son is black as hell, and at any given moment, it could be me that needs someone to stand up for me. It could be him. It could be anybody around me.”
“I made a bad decision. I made a joke out of a situation that’s serious as f—k,” she said. “I’m embarrassed, not for myself, as much as I am for the people that respect me, my son. What I’m supposed to stand for. It was not really a way for me to communicate.” She understands that, at this moment, some might not accept her tearful apology, but she “owes it to a whole lot of people….I’m sorry…I was deadass wrong.”
The clip of Tokyo threatening to “George Floyd” a friend appeared on the @ Iamhairphysician Instagram page in the early hours of June 1. It was clearly a joke, but fans weren’t laughing. The shocking death of George Floyd – another in a long line of fatalities involving black people and the police – sparked massive protests, dubbed the Fed Up-rising by The Root, across the world. Outraged fans quickly dragged Tokyo over her tasteless comment. “The fact that u could even say that… @REALTOKYOJETZ shit not a joke ! CANCELED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” tweeted one fan. “At no point ever should a George Floyd or Eric Garner, or any situation like this be mocked or joked with. So for Tokyo Jetz to do that shit right after it’s happened. Can’t ever f-ck with you now.” “Tokyo Jetz really didn’t even have to say that sh-t bout George Floyd. That was so uncalled for.”