A radio talk-show
host was fired Friday after he made a derogatory
comment about the weight and sexuality of the Green-Rainbow
Party candidate running for Massachusetts governor.
WRKO AM pulled host John DePetro from the air after he
made the comments Thursday. It announced Friday that
he had been fired.
''In the context
of what he said and the tone with which he said it, the
comments were completely inappropriate, derogatory, and will
not be tolerated,'' said Jason Wolfe, the vice
president of AM programming and operations for station
owner Entercom Boston.
DePetro did not
immediately return an e-mailed request for comment
Friday. However, he told The Boston Globe in a
story posted Friday on its Web site that he was ''stunned''
that he had been fired. He said he had called the
candidate, Grace Ross, to apologize for calling her a
''fat lesbian.''
The host, who
calls himself the ''Independent Man,'' said he made the
remark because he was exasperated that Ross and independent
candidate Christy Mihos were eating up time during a
debate earlier in the week that included Republican
candidate Kerry Healey and Democrat Deval Patrick. He
said it was then that he told listeners he wished someone
would ''tell the fat lesbian to shut up.''
''I just think
both her and Christy have served their purpose, and I had
a problem with them still thrusting themselves into the
debate,'' he told the Globe. ''I think I
vocalized what a lot of people were
thinking--'Will you just shut up and let them go at
it?' I added a little more.''
Ross, who is an
out lesbian, laughed when she heard about it but said the
comment was offensive. ''Big, fat? I guess that's supposed
to be his way of saying he doesn't like somebody,''
she said.
After hearing
DePetro had been fired, she said: ''I think that the
comment was offensive in general, so I hope that many people
in the state were offended by it and will help set a
standard of what political debate is supposed to be
about.''
DePetro had also
been reprimanded by station management in July for using
a slur often aimed at gays in reference to Matt Amorello,
the former chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike
Authority. Wolfe said that after DePetro was suspended
in that case, the host was warned that ''any further
comments of this kind would be dealt with in a severe way.''
''I have no doubt that terminating John's employment
was the right action to take,'' he said. (AP)