Darkening your face, regardless of the context or the circumstances,
is always unacceptable because of the racist history of blackface.
I should have understood that then and I never should have done it.
I recognise that it is something absolutely unacceptable to do
and I appreciate calling it makeup but it was blackface.
And that is just not right.
It is something that people who live with the kind of discrimination
that far too many people do because of the colour of their skin,
or their history, or their origins, or their language, or their religion
face on a regular basis and I didn't see that from
the layers of privilege that I have.
And for that I am deeply sorry and I apologise.
– You told us last night on the plane of all of the different incidences
that you recalled.
Have you since been made aware or remembered of other incidences,
and if so, how many?
– I am wary of being definitive about this because the recent pictures
that came out, I had not remembered.
And I think the question is, how can you not remember that?
The fact is I didn't understand how hurtful this is to people
who live with discrimination every single day.
This has been, personally, a moment where
I've had to reflect on the fact that wanting to do good
and wanting to do better simply isn't good enough
and you need to take responsibility for mistakes that hurt people
who thought I was an ally, who hopefully, many of them
still consider me an ally, even though this was a terrible mistake.