Was Dr. Phil's Apology For Drunk Sex Tweet Good Enough For You?

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By Mack Rawden
published

As celebrities go, Dr. Phil McGraw is pretty well liked. The average person seems to think he’s a nice guy who puts the best interests of others first, which is probably why he’s been able to keep his nose pretty clean during his time in the public eye. Unfortunately, last night that smeller got decidedly dirty thanks to an ill-advised tweet about sexual assault.

Without the slightest bit of prompting, Dr. Phil asked his followers to reply with their opinion on whether or not it’s okay to have sex with a drunk girl. Not surprisingly, the post caused quite a bit of outrage and was quickly taken down. You can take a look at a screenshot of it below…

From petitions to snarky tweets, the response to that comment was overwhelming with numerous people wondering why the hell he should even ask such a thing. Well, producers of The Dr. Phil Show released an official response this evening, and it actually sounds pretty believable. You can read it in its entirety below…

"This tweet was intended to invoke discussion leading into a very serious show topic based upon a recent news story. It was a poll question, not a statement or a joke... This was a research post in preparation for a show, not a personal post and Dr. Phil deleted it the second he saw it. It was clearly ill-advised. We sincerely apologize that it suggested anything other than what was intended, data gathering. As you can imagine, Dr. Phil is very upset that this happened."

Every now and again, Dr. Phil uses his Twitter account to generate discussion about various issues he’s going to talk about on his show. It helps him get a general gauge on what the average person thinks, and I guess that helps him inform discussion. You can take a look at the tweet below as an example…

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Even those who see where Dr. Phil was going with that since deleted tweet are more than willing to admit he should have used more words to clarify what the hell he was talking about. Is it okay for two consenting drunk teenagers of the same age to have sex? Is it okay to have sex with your consenting wife if she’s more intoxicated than you are? These are far clearer questions that could generate real discussion, but because of how his query was phrased, it basically sounded like he wanted to know if it was okay for his personal life.

To some of the doctor’s biggest detractors, however, his apology released through a third party isn’t good enough. They think he should come out and face the camera and address the fact that many of his followers may have thought he was acting like a sexual assault on a drunk girl is a moral conundrum and not a straight up rape.

What do you think? Was Dr. Phil’s apology good enough for you? Let us know your thoughts by voting in the poll below…

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Mack Rawden
Mack Rawden
Editor In Chief

Mack Rawden is the Editor-In-Chief of CinemaBlend. He first started working at the publication as a writer back in 2007 and has held various jobs at the site in the time since including Managing Editor, Pop Culture Editor and Staff Writer. He now splits his time between working on CinemaBlend’s user experience, helping to plan the site’s editorial direction and writing passionate articles about niche entertainment topics he’s into. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English (go Hoosiers!) and has been interviewed and quoted in a variety of publications including Digiday. Enthusiastic about Clue, case-of-the-week mysteries, a great wrestling promo and cookies at Disney World. Less enthusiastic about the pricing structure of cable, loud noises and Tuesdays.