Bristol Palin, Showrunner Say Child Used Other F Word

Bristol Palin (right) and sister Willow with Bristol's son, Tripp

Bristol Palin says her 3-year-old son, Tripp, did not say “faggot” but the other f word on a moment captured on tape for her reality show, and the program’s showrunner corroborates this.

“It is the honest-to-God truth,” showrunner Matt Lutz told The Advocate. “He doesn’t know that word. They don’t throw that word around in front of him.”

A clip from Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp was posted on YouTube last week showing the toddler arguing with his mother and aunt Willow in a hotel room. At one point he says to Willow, “Go away, you [bleeped word],” and the poster captioned it with the word "faggot" on screen. The clip was then picked up widely by media, including The Advocate, which reported that the word used was “faggot.”

In an uncensored version of the clip sent by Lutz to The Advocate, it does appear that Tripp says “fuckin” or some variant of “fuck.” “We never in a million years could have imagined that anybody would have thought he said ‘faggot,’” Lutz said. (The Advocate does not have permission to share the clip.)

Bristol Palin addressed the matter on her blog Monday, saying her son “used a different ‘f word,’” and she said she is “not proud of what he did say.” The Lifetime network’s crew “caught a moment on film that would cause any parent to be red in the face,” she added. She also accused “lefty papers” of wanting to “label” her son.

The family of former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was entangled with the gay slur in the past, however. A few years ago Willow Palin was caught using it on Facebook against a schoolmate who criticized her mother’s reality show, Sarah Palin’s Alaska.