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Talking Heads frontman David Byrne issued a lengthy apology Tuesday for wearing black and brown face in a decades-old video for the rock band. Byrne appeared in the racist makeup in the 1984 concert film “Stop Making Sense,” in which he portrays a number of different people interviewing himself while wearing his iconic “big suit.” …
Talking Heads frontman David Byrne issued a lengthy apology Tuesday for wearing black and brown face in a decades-old video for the rock band.
Byrne appeared in the racist makeup in the 1984 concert film “Stop Making Sense,” in which he portrays a number of different people interviewing himself while wearing his iconic “big suit.”
In a series of tweets, he said a journalist recently brought up the controversial video, which he’d nearly forgotten about.
“To watch myself in the various characters, including black and brown face, I acknowledge it was a major mistake in judgement that showed a lack of real understanding,” tweeted Byrne, now 68. “It’s like looking in a mirror and seeing someone else- you’re not, or were not, the person you thought you were.”
The Scottish-born singer said people, including himself, have “huge blind spots.”
“I’d like to think I am beyond making mistakes like this, but clearly at the time I was not,” he continued. “Like I say at the end of our Broadway show American Utopia ‘I need to change too’..and I believe I have changed since then.”
Byrne concluded, “One hopes that folks have the grace and understanding to allow that someone like me, anyone really, can grow and change, and that the past can be examined with honesty and accountability.”
The Spike Lee-directed “American Utopia,” documents Byrne’s popular musical show on Broadway and premieres on HBO in October.
