Ariana Grande spent four minutes backtracking over the video that went viral earlier this week showing her licking doughnuts while proclaiming she hated both Americans and America.
After she was slammed in the media, on Twitter and even by Rob Lowe, the 22-year-old singer posted a groveling YouTube video titled “Sorry Babes” Thursday night begging for forgiveness — yet again.
“I wanted to make a video to apologize again for the whole doughnut fiasco and craziness because I feel like the apology I posted I missed my opportunity to sincerely apologize … because I was too busy preaching about my issues with the food industry,” the former Nickelodeon star and “Love Me Harder” singer said, referring to her prior statement on Wednesday when she asserted her patriotism but added “the fact that the United States has the highest child obesity rate in the world frustrates me.”
Attempting to mend the further damage to her image, “Now is my chance before the whole thing blows over to say sorry and that actually I’ve never been prouder to be an American, to be honest with you,” Grande explained in the latest video.
“Advances that we’ve made in the past couple months and all the wonderful, progressive things that have been going on, I’ve never been prouder of this country, actually.
“Seeing a video of yourself behaving poorly, that you have no idea was taken, is such a rude awakening,” she continued. “It’s like you don’t know what to do. I was so disgusted with myself. I shoved my face in a pillow and wanted to disappear.
“Seeing how ugly it looks when you behave a certain way makes you want to never behave that way again. You learn from it … I was really embarrassed. I only want to be a positive influence on my babes. It has not been an easy 24 hours. I made a mistake and I am being judged for it.
“I’m 22 years old. I’m human. I’ve still got a lot to learn and I make mistakes and that’s how I’m going to learn. I’m going to learn from my mistakes and learn by messing up and that’s how we grow.”
On Wednesday, Grande was replaced by Demi Lovato at Saturday’s MLB All-Star Concert in Cincinnati, with her wisdom tooth surgery being cited as the official reason.
Watch the video here.