Jacob Bernstein, a feature writer at the New York Times, publicly apologized on Tuesday for recently calling President Trump’s wife, Melania, a “hooker.”
On Twitter, Bernstein said that he made the reference in what he believed to be a private conversation at a party this weekend with actress and model Emily Ratajkowski.
“This is a four part tweet. 1. I want to take ownership of a mistake I made,” Bernstein said Tuesday.
He continued in a series of tweets, “2. Speaking at a party in what I thought was a personal conversation, I nevertheless made a stupid remark about the first lady. 3. My editors have made it clear my behavior was not in keeping with the standards of the Times, and I agree. 4. My mistake, referring to unfounded rumors, shouldn’t reflect on anyone else and I apologize profusely.”
4. My mistake, referring to unfounded rumors, shouldn’t reflect on anyone else and I apologize profusely.
— Jacob Bernstein (@BernsteinJacob) February 14, 2017
2. Speaking at a party in what I thought was a personal conversation, I nevertheless made a stupid remark about the first lady.
— Jacob Bernstein (@BernsteinJacob) February 14, 2017
A spokeswoman for the Times did not return a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
Bernstein’s comments about the first lady were first made public Monday on Twitter by Ratajkowski.
The model said she was attending a party in New York the previous night when Bernstein “told me ‘Melania is a hooker.'”
Melania Trump is currently suing the Daily Mail after it published a story in August suggesting the former model had been an escort in the 1990s. The news outlet cited a story from Trump’s native Slovenia that said the modeling agency she worked for doubled as an escort service. An attorney for Melania Trump has called that rumor “100 percent false, highly damaging to her reputation, and personally hurtful.”
A spokesperson for the Times said Monday that the reporter, still unnamed at the time, had been addressed by his editors and that his remark was “completely inappropriate.”
This is not Bernstein’s first brush with controversy regarding the Trumps.
In October, former talk show host Montel Williams, who lives in a Trump-branded building in New York, accused Bernstein of threatening to publicly reveal Williams’ specific address unless he cooperated in a story about living in a Trump building.
