Tana Mongeau Responds to Brooke Schofield’s ‘Horrific’ Racist Tweets

Tana Mongeau addressed recently resurfaced tweets that her Cancelled podcast co-host Brooke Schofield wrote, calling the racist comments “horrific.”

The tweets, written between 2012 and 2016, were reposted by a user on TikTok in July. They included homophobic language, support for former President Donald Trump, and defended the actions of George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012.

In the latest episode of Cancelled, posted on August 11, Mongeau, 26, wanted to make it “abundantly clear” that it was “her decision” not to have Schofield, 27, be part of the episode.

Reps for Schofield and Mongeau did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on Schofield’s future with the podcast.

“I’m saying that as a White person,” Mongeau said. “I cannot even imagine being a Black non-fan or fan and reading the tweets.”

Mongeau confirmed that she also “condemned her” for the tweets and that she “had no right to forgive her as a White person for the things she said.”

Schofield posted an apology video on TikTok on August 4, during which she addressed the tweets and said she thought they were “so disturbing” and “disgusting.” She also shared that she lived with her “very, very right-wing conservative” grandfather and “my household was literally just Fox News all the time” and that “whatever I heard, I passed on.”

Mongeau initially supported Schofield’s apology but apologized for that response on the podcast. She “regretted” doing so and was “going to beat myself up for that forever, quite frankly,” Mongeau said.

“It’s not enough to write these things off as ‘we grew up bad,’ ” she continued. “And I think that I learned that now and that shows me that I still have things to learn and unlearn.”

Mongeau then addressed her own racist tweets and posts from 2013 and 2014 that she previously apologized for and said she is “more than happy to apologize until the day I die.” In 2020, Khalen Barry, a former YouTube collaborator of Mongeau’s, called her out for alleged ignorance based in racism during their work together, per Business Insider.

Mongeau apologized, and Twitter users responded by sharing screenshots of her racist tweets. In one, she called a friend a “cotton picker” and told him to “go back to plantation.”

“They were hurtful and disgusting and racist,” Mongeau continued on August 11. “And I know that while I do think I’ve grown so much as a person from who I was in those tweets at that time, I know that there’s always more growing for me to do and that’s why I wanted to talk about this today.”

While Mongeau did not directly address Schofield’s future on the podcast, she did say she knows “where I want the future of this podcast to go” and always takes everyone’s comments into consideration.

“I hope [Brooke] takes the time to grow and learn what she needs to,” she added. “And intake the information she needs to and speak to people of color and understand the pain that they felt while reading those tweets.”

In a follow-up video posted to TikTok on August 6, Schofield confirmed she had made a donation to the Trayvon Martin Foundation and that she is “doing her research” into other communities and foundations she can help.

Source: PEOPLE