MSNBC host Joy Reid targets Crist with anti-gay comments in old blog posts

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Joy Reid apologizes for 'insensitive' Charlie Crist posts

MSNBC host Joy Reid issues an apology for old blog posts in which she speculated about the sexuality of former Florida governor Charlie Crist.

MSNBC host Joy Reid wrote a dozen blog posts from 2007-2009 containing offensive homophobic remarks and anti-gay jokes.

The old blog posts ─ unearthed by a Twitter user and reported by Mediaite ─ targeted former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, whom Reid mocked as “Miss Charlie” for being gay and closeted even though there was never any proof that he was. The posts fanned rumors of Crist's sexual orientation and his political opponents tried to tar him with the gossip during his governorship -- when he was a Republican.

The controversial host apologized Sunday for the posts.

“This note is my apology to all who are disappointed by the content of blogs I wrote a decade ago, for which my choice of words and tone have legitimately been criticized,” Reid said in a statement to Fox News.

“As a writer, I pride myself on a facility with language ─ an economy of words or at least some wisdom in the selection,” she said. “However, that clearly has not always been the case.”

Mediaite reported it was able to retrieve the posts from Reid’s blog, which no longer exists, through an online archiving service.

“Miss Charlie, Miss Charlie, Stop pretending, brother,” Reid wrote in a 2007 post, according to the media outlet. “It’s okay that you don’t go for the ladies."

In another, the “AM Joy” host wrote, “Now that he’s married to a girl, Charlie Crist is being sought out for all KINDS of good stuff… [The GOP] are wooing Miss Charlie to run.”

Rep. Charlie Crist, former governor of Florida. (AP, File)

In a Dec. 12, 2008, post, Reid belittled Crist as dreading physical relations with his wife on their honeymoom.

“I can just see poor Charlie on the honeymoon, ogling the male waiters and thinking to himself, ‘god, do I actually have to see her naked…?'” she wrote.

The same blog post included a joke about Crist having sex with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Mediaite reported. "Get your mind out of the gutter," she joked.

Reid commented in the blog that the reason the former Florida governor got married to another woman in the first place was to help him become McCain’s 2008 running mate.

Mediaite counted 17 times Reid derisively referred to Crist as “Miss Charlie.” The subject led her to opine on why gay men stay in the closet.

“When a gay politician gets married, it usually indicates that he is highly ambitious, and desires to put himself in a position to move up the power ladder,” she wrote.

She further mocked Crist with tags “gay politicians” and “not gay politicians.”

In her statement, Reid said her blog posts were written at the time when Crist was a a conservative Republican, whose positions on issues like gay marriage and adoption by same-sex couples in Florida shared headlines with widely rumored reports that he was hiding his sexual orientation.

“Those reports were the subject of lots of scrutiny,” she said.

“Let me be clear: at no time have I intentionally sought to demean or harm the LGBT community, which includes people whom I deeply love,” she said. “My goal, in my ham-handed way, was to call out potential hypocrisy.”

She added, “Nonetheless, as someone who is not a member of the LGBT community, I regret the way I addressed the complex issue of the closet and speculation on a person’s sexual orientation with a mocking tone and sarcasm. It was insensitive, tone deaf and dumb.”

She also apologized to Crist, who she said was the target of her “thoughtlessness.” Crist ultimately left the Republican party, joining the Democrats in 2012.

Reid drew fire in June for criticizing House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., after he was shot in the hip by a gunman targeting Republican members of Congress.

She claimed his record on race was being ignored as a result of the shooting.

Click for link to Reid's old blog.