Danger! Alex Trebek’s interim host and presumptive heir, Ken Jennings, hasn’t had the best week online. Just before New Year’s Eve, the champion apologized for old insensitive tweets – including a six-year-old post in which he wrote, “Nothing more sad than a hot person in a wheelchair.” And on Sunday, Jennings tried to defend his podcast host, John Roderick – whose Twitter nickname is now “Bean Dad” thanks to a bizarre and controversial anecdote that some have labeled child abuse, and whose own bad tweets have also surfaced.
Over the weekend, Roderick shared a long anecdote in which he said his nine-year-old daughter told him she was hungry, and he responded by telling her to make baked beans – only to respond with horror when he realized he never taught her how you use a can opener. Rather than helping his child prepare the meal, he left her struggling with the device alone for six hours in what he called a ‘learning moment’ – a process he said was accompanied by ‘tears’ and his daughter’ collapsed .[ing] in a frustrated hope. ”
Such as The Hollywood Reporter notes that some Twitter users called the ordeal “ child abuse. ” Roderick defended himself, writing, “Somehow my story of teaching my daughter how to use a can opener and overcoming her frustration ended up on a Twitter version accusing me of child abuse. It is astonishing. My child is doing well. He added, “The best thing about the fact that these trolls take care of parenting is that they keep insisting that it’s child abuse not to give my child baked beans for SIX HOURS. Six hours is the time between meals. Lunch at noon, dinner at 6. They literally say CHILD ABUSE. ”He’s since deleted his account.
But the controversy also led some on social media to surface other more disturbing posts from Roderick, such as screenshots of them, such as THR notes, including anti-Semitic messages and defenses against the use of racist and homophobic insults.
Jennings, who co-hosts the podcast Omnibus with Roderick, who initially joked about the writer-musician ‘Bean Dad’ fiasco, tweeting, “Extremely jealous and annoyed that my podcast co-host becomes a dictionary and I never will.”
“If this reassures anyone,” he added“I personally know John as (a) a loving and considerate father who (b) tells elevated-for-effect stories of his own temper on about ten podcasts a week. This site is so dumb. “
When confronted with Roderick’s “weird anti-Semitic shit”, Jennings responded“Now if we sift through old tweets, it’s pretty easy to find what he really thinks about anti-Semitism. On our show he is always the pro-Israeli! “He later added that “there is no axis where an anti-Semitic screenshot represents an actual opinion I have ever heard from him.”
But many on social media have been far from satisfied – especially considering that Jennings has apologized for his own misguided posts in a thread that some considered genuine and others labeled a PR maneuver while checking out Trebek’s old hosting job.
On Wednesday Jennings wrote“Hey, I just wanted to admit that over the years on Twitter I’ve definitely tweeted some thoughtless and insensitive stuff. Sometimes they worked like jokes in my head and I was baffled to see how they read on screen.”
He continued: “I used to usually leave bad tweets so they could be submerged. That way, they could at least lead to smart answers and even advocacy. Removing it felt like laundering a mistake. “
But I think that exercise may have given the impression that I’m behind every botched joke I’ve ever posted here. Not at all! ”He added apologized, for example for the wheelchair tweet in 2018.) “Sometimes I said stupid things in a stupid way and I want to apologize to people who were (rightly!) Offended, ”Jennings wrote. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but it doesn’t matter: I screwed up and I’m really sorry.”
“If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that we should be kinder to each other,” Jennings concluded. “With that in mind, I look forward to entering 2021.”
A representative for Sony and Danger! did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.