ViacomCBS Severs Ties with Nick Cannon After Antisemitic Remarks

ViacomCBS severed ties with rapper and TV personality Nick Cannon on Tuesday after he refused to apologize for antisemitic remarks the Masked Singer host made last month.

During a June episode of his Cannon’s Class podcast, Cannon told former Public Enemy member Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin that “the Semitic people are Black people.”

“You can’t be anti-Semitic when we are the Semitic people,” Nick Cannon claimed. “When we are the same people they want to be. That’s our birthright,” he then said, before he added that African-Americans are the “true Hebrews.”

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Cannon also alleged that “African Americans and the people of the Jewish community have partnered to create some of the best, most revolutionary work we know today.”

“While we support ongoing education and dialogue in the fight against bigotry, we are deeply troubled that Nick has failed to acknowledge or apologize for perpetuating anti-Semitism, and we are terminating our relationship with him,” ViacomCBS said in a statement.

Cannon was named chairman of Nickelodeon’s TeenNick cable channel at 26-years-old.

Cannon also made derogatory statements about Caucasians and praised the notorious antisemite and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

“The people that don’t have [melanin] are a little less,” Cannon said, adding that “when they were sent to the mountains of Caucasus … The sun then started to deteriorate them so then, they’re acting out of fear, they’re acting out of low self-esteem, they’re acting out of a deficiency.”

“So, therefore, the only way that they can act is evil. They have to rob, steal, rape, kill in order to survive. So then, these people that didn’t have what we have — and when I say we, I speak of the melanated people — they had to be savages … They’re acting as animals so they’re the ones that are actually closer to animals. They’re the ones that are actually the true savages,” Cannon added.

The MTV’s Wild ‘n Out host’s comments sparked a massive backlash, prompting him to address his matter in a social media post.

“Anyone who knows me knows that I have no hate in my heart nor malice intentions,” Cannon wrote on Facebook. “I do not condone hate speech nor the spread of hateful rhetoric. We are living in a time when it is more important than ever to promote unity and understanding.”

Yet, Cannon refused to apologize: “To me apologies are empty … What we need is healing. What we need is discussion. Correct me. I don’t tell my children to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ I want them to understand where they need to be corrected. And then that’s how we grow.”