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*Actress turned political pundit Stacey Dash is apologizing for offensive comments she made while working as a Fox News conservative commentator
*Dash, an ardent Trump support, has turned on the former president and called out the Capitol riots as 'appalling and stupid' in an interview with DailyMailTV
*She drew intense criticism for backing Trump's statement after the 2017 Charlottesville neo-Nazi rally in Virginia
*'I've lived my life being angry, which is what I was on Fox News. I was the angry, conservative, Black woman. And at that time in my life it was who I was,' she said
*'There are things that I am sorry for. Things that I did say, that I should not have said them the way I said them,' she added
*Her views proved too far-out even for Fox News, who fired her in 2016 after she claimed Barack Obama 'didn't give a s**t' about terrorism'
*She says she wants to continue acting, despite being blacklisted by Hollywood
*'That's who Stacey was, but that's not who Stacey is now. Stacey's someone who has compassion, empathy,' she said
Former Clueless star and Fox News conservative firebrand Stacey Dash has denounced Donald Trump and slammed her old news channel for casting her as an 'angry Black woman.'
In an exclusive interview with DailyMailTV, Dash turned on the former president and called out the Capitol riots on January 6 as 'appalling and stupid.'
The comments mark a stunning u-turn from her previous ardent support for Trump.
Dash, 52, drew intense criticism for backing Trump's statement after the 2017 Charlottesville neo-Nazi rally in Virginia that there were 'very fine people on both sides,' for defending Trump's claim that Mexican immigrants were drug traffickers, rapists, and criminals and calling for an end to celebrating Black History Month.
The controversial former commentator's views proved too far-out even for Fox News, who fired her in 2016 after she claimed Barack Obama 'didn't give a s**t' about terrorism.
But in her DailyMailTV interview, Dash apologized for any hurt she had caused, blaming her 'arrogant pride and anger', vowed to withdraw from politics, and claimed she was typecast by the channel.
'I've lived my life being angry, which is what I was on Fox News. I was the angry, conservative, Black woman. And at that time in my life it was who I was,' she said.
'I realized in 2016 that anger is unsustainable and it will destroy you. I made a lot of mistakes because of that anger.
'There are things that I am sorry for. Things that I did say, that I should not have said them the way I said them. They were very arrogant and prideful and angry. And that's who Stacey was, but that's not who Stacey is now. Stacey's someone who has compassion, empathy.
'God has forgiven me, how dare I not forgive someone else. I don't want to be judged, so how dare I judge anyone else. So if anyone has ever felt that way about me, like I've judged, that I apologize for because that's not who I am.'
The Clueless star said she was responsible for her role stirring up political controversy at Fox, but added that it was what she was being paid to do.
'I'm not a victim of anyone,' she said. 'Working for Fox at the time, that was my job. I did my job from the place I was at. Stacey now would never work at Fox, would never work for a news network or be a news contributor.'
Dash continued to be outspoken after she was dumped by the network in 2016. In March 2018 during a failed run for a Southern California congressional seat as a Republican she told MSNBC that Trump was 'absolutely right' in his comments about the Charlottesville 'Unite the Right' rally.
'I think he was absolutely right… Both sides had a right to assemble, but they were both extremes,' she told the channel. 'Do I know every person of the neo-Nazi party, if they have a good heart or not? No, I do not.'
But in her DailyMailTV interview in her current hometown of Los Angeles last week, Dash walked back her previous steadfast support for Trump, dismissing him as 'not the president' and telling conservatives to 'give the new president a chance'.
'As far as he's concerned, [Trump] is not the president. We have a new president,' she said.
'Being a supporter of Trump has put me in some kind of box that I don't belong in. But he's not the president. I'm going to give the president that we have right now a chance.'
Dash also used the interview to condemn the deadly riots at the Capitol in Washington DC on January 6 – saying they marked a turning point for her.
'I think the Capitol Riots were appalling,' she said. 'When that happened I was like 'Ok, I'm done. I'm truly done.' Because senseless violence of any kind I denounce. What happened on January 6 was just appalling and stupid.'
Despite her newly-professed neutrality, the actress is not shying away from roles in political movies.
Dash plays a doctor in a new anti-abortion movie Roe v Wade, about the titular Supreme Court landmark case.
Dash said the movie's stance on abortion meant producers struggled to find locations that would allow them to shoot, and the premiere was reportedly shunned in Hollywood, leading writer and directors Nick Loeb and Cathy Allyn to unveil it at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida.
Despite her former Clueless stardom, where she became a household name as Beverly Hills high schooler Dionne, the 52-year-old mother said she has also received short shrift in Hollywood because of her strident right-wing views.
'I've been basically blacklisted. Being a black conservative is not easy,' she said.
Dash said her conservative views stem from a tough upbringing in the South Bronx of the 1960s and '70s, where her parents were teen drug addicts, her uncle was a pimp, her babysitter sexually abused her and she saw her first dead body on the street at just three years old.
'This idea that people think I'm coming from a place of judgment with the things I believe? No, it's experience,' she said.
'I'm from the hood,' the actress, whose cousin Damon Dash co-founded Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella Records, added. 'The codes of the street are very conservative. If you're not a hustler, if you don't know how to hustle, how to make your money, you're a lamb for the slaughter.
'If you have a gun and someone tries to take your gun, not good things are going to happen to you.'
She also insisted that she would have leaped at the role in Roe v Wade even without the skepticism LA's casting directors now direct towards her, because of her personal views on abortion.
'I said apolitical, but I have my values and my morals. My position on abortion is because of my own personal experience. I was on the abortion table with my son,' she said.
'They were about to wheel me into the operating room because I was four months pregnant. I said 'God, please, you have to tell me what to do. And I don't want a sign, I don't want a whisper. You have to tell me.'
'God spoke to me like thunder, and he said 'Keep your son.' He even told me it was a boy. I ripped the IV out my arm, jumped off the table, very dramatic.
'But my son's 30 years old today. I'm just so grateful that I took that time and I listened to God. that's why I'm pro-life from my own personal experience.'
Dash said she hopes to rebuild her acting career and dreams of playing a superhero in an action movie – giggling that her favorite pastimes are shooting at the range and riding horses.
But she was not shy in stating her stance on another thorny political issue: 'I'm not a feminist,' she told DailyMailTV.
'Right now I feel like women need to support men, lift them up, love them and respect them. On the other hand, it's a two-way street. If men want us to do that, they have to respect us, cherish us, adore us, love us. We can't do one without the other. We need each other.'
Dash also criticized identity politics as divisive.
'I don't believe in identity politics. I don't walk around looking at someone and saying 'oh this is the color of your skin so, therefore, you are this', or 'you're straight or gay so, therefore, you are this'. I don't judge people by the color of their skin or their sexual orientation. That's not who I am,' she said.
Dash was previously called out by former friend Russell Simmons on The Tomorrow Show for calling her own daughter a 'dyke' – but she says some of her closest friends are gay.
Source: Josh Boswell/Dailymail.co.uk
Date Posted: Wednesday, March 10th, 2021 , Total Page Views: 911
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