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Samantha Bee apologizes for a segment that made fun of a man's haircut
The man had recently had chemotherapy and radiation treatment for brain cancer
Late-night host Samantha Bee apologized on Thursday for a segment on her show that made fun of a cancer patient’s haircut.
The clip on “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” showed several men, who producer Mike Rubens said had “Nazi hair,” at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
One of the men in the piece was Kyle Coddington. He’s a contributor for the Outset Network, which reported that he recently completed his first round of chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
According to a GoFundMe page that was set up in December, Coddington has been diagnosed with a stage 4 glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
“Please delete this episode. I look like a balding potato,” he said in a tweet to Bee. In a followup post he said “Also, it’s not a Nazi haircut. Richard Spencer’s is, but mine’s from cancer.”
The show issued an apology on its official Twitter account.
“We deeply apologize for offending @_that_kyle in our CPAC segment. We only learned of his condition today & have removed him from the piece.”
Bee also apologized to Coddington and his sister, whose tweet about the story was liked and shared thousands of times.
Coddington’s sister tweeted, saying “When @iamsambee makes fun of your brother for having “Nazi hair.” He actually has stage 4 brain cancer, but whatever floats your boat.”
In a statement published late Thursday night, Kyle Coddington said “I want to make it clear that half-apologizing for offending someone is not apologizing for making baseless accusations against people because of the way they look. This kind of behavior should be rejected by both sides of the aisle.” Coddington also said he is a registered Democrat and openly “Never Trump,” referencing an anti-Trump movement.
Coddington said he was overwhelmed by the support he’d received following the segment and thanked Full Frontal for donating to his GoFundMe page.
“Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” airs on TBS, which is owned by Time Warner, CNN’s parent company.