Ben Affleck Is The Reason Why PBS Suspended “Finding Your Roots”
I’m sure we all have ancestors who have done stuff we’re embarrassed about. Hell, I have living relatives who have done stuff I’m embarrassed about (examples: wore socks with flip flops out in public, gave a fake name to a restaurant host because they thought it was cute, liked the “Entourage” page on Facebook, etc…). Well, when Ben Affleck discovered that the PBS show Finding Your Roots was going to include an embarrassing fact about his ancestors (the “embarrassing fact” being that they owned slaves), he whined, cried and asked them to cut that part out. Well, not only was that part cut out, but PBS has cut out the entire show, for now.
Variety says that PBS pressed the pause button on Finding Your Roots, which is like a fancy Who Do You Think You Are?, after an internal investigation confirmed to them that the entitled Easter Island statue of smugness, Ben Affleck, got producers to erase the part about his ancestors owning slaves from an episode that aired in October. Everyone found out about Ben’s little self-righteous move when the Sony Hack brought out emails between FYR’s host Henry Louis Gates and Sony Entertainment’s CEO about Batfleck asking producers to take a Magic Eraser to the slave-owning stuff. Ben later butt burped out an apology where he said that he was “embarrassed” about being related to slave owners and blah, blah, fart, queen, squirt, blah.
PBS said that FYR’s producers violated their rules of journalistic standards by allowing an outside trick to influence production. PBS has suspended the third season of the show until more fact checkers and an independent genealogist are hired. PBS will not renew FYR for a fourth season until they “are satisfied that the editorial standards of the series have been successfully raised to a level in which we can have confidence.” They have also scrubbed Ben’s episode from their schedule, the Internet and homevideo. Henry Louis Gates put out this statement today after PBS slapped his show down:
“I want to thank PBS for its thoughtful internal review. I sincerely regret not discussing my editing rationale with our partners at PBS and WNET, and I apologize for putting PBS and its member stations in the position of having to defend the integrity of their programming. Throughout my many years of producing genealogy documentaries, I have always operated with rigorous ethical standards. Even so, we have been working with PBS and WETA to create new guidelines to increase transparency going forward. My career has been dedicated to improving race relations and intercultural understanding in our country. We are very excited about the third season of ‘Finding Your Roots’ and look forward to uncovering and sharing many more incredible ancestral stories with our viewers.”
The producers of FYR should be hanging their heads low in shame. They could lose their show because they bowed down to Ben Affleck. Ben Affleck. Out of all the celebrities to ass suck, they ass suck Ben Affleck? For shame. If Ben Affleck ever tries to boss you around, all you have to say is: “Bitch, shut the fuck up. You were in Gigli. You don’t know shit.“