EW reports that Big Brother host Julie Chen has grilled Jack Matthews about the racist comments he made about Asian housemate Isabella ‘Bella’ Wang.
Last month contestant Tommy Bracco said was talking about Bella behind her back saying, “the proof is in the pudding”. Matthews then responded, “the rice pudding,” which spurred on laughter from the other contestants.
Described as “the most hated contestant by viewers”, a petition was also started to have Matthews kicked off the show after he said he wanted to “stomp a mud hole through” contestant Kemi Fakunle’s chest.
Now that Matthews has been evicted, Chen confronted the contestant bout his notorious comments. First asking about Fekunle, she said, “in recap, you called her bitch, you called her dog poop — you didn’t use the word ‘poop’ — and we just heard you say you wanted to stomp a mudhole through her chest. Watching that now, what are your thoughts?”
Matthews responded: “Okay, well, I will say that the ‘stomp the mudhole comment’ was based on something that Sam [Bledsoe] said last season when she was frustrated, and I don’t think there was any personal vendetta behind saying that. I think my statements were playful in a group of people. I do apologize for what I said, and that’s very sincere. I think Kemi was, and is, a great person.
“I think this game and being in 24-hour view of people and you say things and… um, I wouldn’t say I fully support the things that I said and the way that I said them. If I could take them back, I would, and I wish I could have articulated them in some other way possible. But it doesn’t take away the fact that I don’t think that Kemi is a wonderful person inside and outside of this house, absolutely.”
Asking about the “rice pudding” incident, Chen said, “because Bella is Asian-American and you made the pudding comment — rice pudding — some people thought that was a derogatory statement about her ethnicity. What is your response to that?”
“I appreciate you letting me be able to voice my opinion about that,” answered Matthews. “We spoke earlier in the evening. There was the slop thing going on and people were making different recipes earlier in that evening, mainly Tommy and Christy. And rice pudding was spoken about in slop pudding. And so earlier in that evening, rice and slop pudding were going, around so Tommy bringing it up in that situation made me say it there.”
“It had nothing — absolutely nothing — to do with her ethnicity whatsoever. I appreciate that I get to voice me saying that.”
