American cable channel Black Entertainment Television (BET) has suspended a producer after a joke about Beyonce and Jay Z’s daughter that aired on Monday on the network’s music video countdown show, 106 & Park.
A source at BET, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the producer was suspended after a remark about two-year-old Blue Ivy’s hair.
On Monday’s show, during a segment about Blue Ivy’s hypothetical thoughts during Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), guest host Karrueche Tran said: “I really did wake up like this, because my parents never comb my hair.”
Blue Ivy joined her mother onstage at the VMAs.
Stephen Hill, BET’s president of music programming and specials, publicly apologised on Twitter.
“Last night on 106 & Park there was a stupid, unthoughtful joke made about a young child,” Hill tweeted.
Hill also said the network privately apologised to Beyonce and Jay Z.
Tran, who has dated singer Chris Brown, tweeted on Tuesday that she did not write the joke. She wrote: “Now y’all know I LOVE me some Beyonce and Blue Ivy!”
Hill also tweeted that it was not Tran’s fault. “We also apologise to her for putting her in that position,” he wrote.
