Los Angeles Times Columnist Apologizes For “Deeply Offensive” Descriptions Of LSU Women’s Team – Update

deadline.com:

UPDATED with statement: Los Angeles Times columnist Ben Bolch, who came under widespread fire for a column about the LSU–UCLA Women’s NCAA tournament matchup in which he called the Lady Tigers “dirty debutantes” and called them “villains,” while calling the Bruins “milk and cookies,” has apologized.

Bloch says that he “failed miserably in my choice of words,” admitting that he “tried to be clever in my phrasing about one team’s attitude, using alliteration while not understanding the deeply offensive connotation or associations.” (See LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey‘s point on that below.) He goes on to write that while he did not intend to be hurtful, “the words I used were wrong.”A LONG OVERDUE APOLOGY: pic.twitter.com/lgZkCt21Ft PREVIOUSLY on Sunday: A Los Angeles Times column criticized as “sexist” by LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey was changed online by the newspaper early this morning because it “did not meet Times editorial standards.” LSU beat UCLA 78-69 on Saturday to advance in the Women’s NCAA tournament.

Before the game, columnist Ben Bolch wrote that the Lady Tigers were “dirty debutantes” and called them “villains,” while calling the Bruins “milk and cookies.” He called the matchup “good versus evil.” Bolch’s column was updated at 12:55 a.m.

ET, with an update notice inserted at 1:10 a.m. All of the phrases were removed, though the headline still refers to “villains.” “The one thing I’m not going to let you do, I’m not going to let you attack young people, and there were some things in this commentary, guys, that you should be offended by as women.