Roland Martin’s tweets have led CNN to suspend the anchor temporarily from the network.
Roland Martin, CNN anchor, is suspended after alleged homophobic tweets posted during Super Bowl XLVI, according to the NY Daily News.
Martin remarked that any man that was a fan of David Beckham’s H&M underwear commercial wasn’t a “real bruh.”
He tweeted, “If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl”
Earlier that day, he made fun of a New England Patriot player who arrived to the stadium in a pink jump suit.
The constant tweeting put Martin in Twitter jail temporarily but not before he attempted to justify his comments with the idea that he was just poking fun at soccer.
GLAAD, Gay and Lesbian against Defamation, requested that Martin be fired.
On Monday, Martin apologized saying, “It was meant to be a deliberately over-the-top and sarcastic crack about soccer; I do not advocate violence of any kind against anyone gay, or not.”
He then said, “As anyone who follows me on Twitter knows, anytime soccer comes up during football season it’s another chance for me to take a playful shot at soccer, nothing more.”
CNN network followed with a statement:
“Roland Martin’s tweets were regrettable and offensive. Language that demeans is inconsistent with the values and culture of our organization and is not tolerated. We have been giving careful consideration to this matter, and Roland will not be appearing on our air for the time being.”
Martin has not spoken about the suspension on Twitter.
