Questlove of The Roots, the house band of “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,” was attacked by “3,500 tea party extremists” on Twitter after he publicly insulted Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann by playing the song “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” when she took the show’s stage last week.
The most memorable insult he received was “nigger fuckhead ghetto stick,” he told Pitchfork.
“I really didn’t think about how it could be perceived as a misogynist swipe,” Questlove said of the song choice, claiming that he overlooked the sexist connotations of the word “bitch.”
“It deeply offended a lot of women’s groups and non-Bachmann supporters, and for that I’m deeply sorry,” he said. “I was really just going with her whole revisionist history angle, I wasn’t calling it out on her being a woman.”
He said that he was concerned that he would be fired before Bachmann accepted apologies from Fallon and NBC. “We were definitely waiting with bated breath,” he said, noting his concern that pressure from advertisers would force the network’s hand.