Social media personality Alix Earle has addressed recent claims about her trademarking offensive comments she previously made on ASKfm.
In a statement shared on her Instagram story on Monday, Earle admitted she had repeatedly used a racial slur on the question-and-answer website in 2014.
“A couple of weeks ago, screenshots surfaced from my old ask.fm account showing me using a slur in the summer of 2014,” Earle wrote. “I am taking accountability and want to make it clear that I was 13 years old and did not understand the deeply offensive meaning behind that word. That is no excuse for using that word in any context or at any age. That is absolutely not the way I speak or what I stand for.”
Screenshots of these offensive comments — which were posted on the “Alix Earle Snark” page on Reddit in 2023 — resurfaced on platforms like TikTok and other subreddits this month.
After the screenshots appeared on a subreddit named after the “Do We Know Them?” podcast hosted by Jessi Smiles and Lily Marston, Earle’s legal team allegedly contacted the two hosts.
“Her lawyer contacted us and said that we have violated their copyright,” Smiles said in the Aug. 12 episode of the “Do We Know Them?” podcast. “People posted screenshots of [her racist posts] in our subreddit, and her lawyer said that they have a trademark to that,” she added.
Smiles noted that she and Marston have no affiliation with that subreddit, saying, “We don’t moderate it, we don’t have any access to it.”
In her statement, Earle called these trademarking claims “absolutely ridiculous and untrue.”
“In the absence of my addressing this, my silence allowed others to fill the void with rumors that simply aren’t true,” Earle wrote.
“I regret how I handled this situation, allowing too many people to talk me out of saying something for too long,” Earle added. “I wasn’t sure how to handle it and unfortunately the advice I was given, although well intended, was wrong. There is no one to blame but myself for not standing my ground and going with my gut to speak right away.”
Variety has reached out to the “Do We Know Them?” podcast for comment.
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