Comedian and Food Network host Josh Denny has called his tweets using the N-word and comparing use of “straight white male” to the racial slur as “very incendiary,” but he said he’s not sorry.
The host of Ginormous Food appeared on Van Lathan’s podcast The Red Pill on Tuesday. He said he has received death threats over the Friday tweet making the comparison amid a slew of criticism. While unapologetic, he told Lathan: “I take responsibility for it. I said those things.”
Denny dropped several N-bombs during his nearly hour-and-a-half-long appearance on the podcast, including some after Lathan objected. That, said Lathan, is “unbelievably telling.”
The Friday tweet read: “‘Straight White Male’ has become this century’s N-Word. It’s used to offend and diminish the recipient based on assumption and bias. No difference in the usage.”
In the aftermath, older tweets by Denny dating to 2012 had him spelling out the N-word and making disparaging remarks about Asian women. On The Red Pill, Denny called those tweets “dark jokes,” adding: “Do you think nobody enjoys dark comedy, and do you think that anybody that does enjoy dark comedy, that it’s indicative of a deeper evil?”
Lathan responded, in part, “those tweets are pretty vile.”
When Denny uttered the full N-word on the podcast, Lathan responded: “Could you not use the word because it’s very, it’s a little unnerving.”
Denny used the slur three more times, once as he recounted one of his old jokes, prompting Lathan to object a second time: “Why would you say that again if I told you it made me uncomfortable?”
Denny responded: “Because it’s in the joke. I’m quoting the joke.”
Lathan: “Josh, just chill dog.”
He called Denny’s repeat use of the slur “unbelievably telling to me.”
Lathan also works for the gossip and entertainment site TMZ.
