Mario Lopez apologized Wednesday (via his rep) for telling conservative commentator Candace Owens that it’s “dangerous” and “alarming” for parents to honor the wishes of young children who identify with a gender other than the one assigned at birth.
Lopez originally made the comments in a June interview on The Candance Owen Show, but the clips resurfaced and received backlash on Twitter.
During the interview, Owens and Lopez discussed what Owens called the “weird trend” of celebrities allowing their young children to choose how they identify. Charlize Theron was mentioned in the interview, as the actress revealed in April that her 7-year-old son Jackson did not identify as a boy.
Owens said she didn’t understand the “new Hollywood mentality” where celebrities “think their children now have the mental authority.”
Lopez agreed with Owens, saying “I am trying to understand it myself.”
“Look, I’m never one to tell anyone how to parent their kids obviously and I think if you come from a place of love, you really can’t go wrong but at the same time, my God, if you’re 3 years old and you’re saying you’re feeling a certain way or you think you’re a boy or a girl or whatever the case may be, I just think it’s dangerous as a parent to make this determination then, well, OK, then you’re going to a boy or a girl, whatever the case may be. It’s sort of alarming and my gosh, I just think about the repercussions later on,” Lopez said.
Queer Eye star Karamo Brown was among those who took issue with Lopez’s statement:
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