Why Making a Public Apology Only Makes Things Worse

Caught Red Handed: When a celebrity makes a public apology, it’s usually because they were caught or someone told on them. When you’re caught or called out for doing something wrong AFTER you made a name for yourself, everyone’s perspective on you flips on a dime. And by making a public apology, you’re confirming allegations against you to be true, thus destroying the what little credibility you had left.

How NOT to say “Sorry:” If one was to make a public apology, you’d need to choose your words carefully. It’s one thing to admit the allegations brought forward and say sorry, but to go into detail on the allegations and your theory on how they came to be transitions from putting salt on the wound to pouring jalapeno juice on it. It also doesn’t help if you say “I should’ve known” or “I now know what I did was wrong” because that implies you’re ignorant and one of the policies at my new job at Mohegan (got a new job btw) is “ignorance is no excuse.” Also, NEVER blame anyone except yourself.

The Severity of Your Actions: A public apology makes matters worse depending on the severity of the situation. If you’re, for example accused of using racial slurs, an apology is warranted, but only a select few will forgive and stay loyal to you. If you’re accused of sexual harassment or pedophilia however, your career is over even if you apologize and when you do, you get no sympathy. 

The World Never Forgives or Forgets: When was the last time a celebrity had allegations brought against them, admitted them to be true, apologize for them and was unanimously forgiven as everyone went about their daily lives? This scenario has only happened in fantasy land because in the real world, forgiveness is the last thing ANYONE wants to do. To many people, forgiveness means letting the accused get away with whatever they did wrong, even if they admitted and apologized for it. For others, forgiveness is essentially giving the accused another chance and you never know if they’ll do whatever they did wrong again and if they do, it makes the people the forgave them feel betrayed. It also doesn’t help that people don’t forget what you did wrong even after you apologize. People are still going to talk about you negatively and not give anything you did in your career any credit.

Conclusion: While I’m not saying don’t make a public apology, I am letting you know what happens if you do once you become famous and do something wrong. I’ve seen this time and time again where immediately after a celebrity makes a public apology amid allegations brought against them, all their credibility is just gone in an instant because of these reasons. My advice, face your demons now and try to better yourself then try and build your career. Because it can be over with just 2 words: I’m sorry.