Ms. Rachel Blowback: Children’s Creator Apologizes Again for Instagram Mix-Up After Alleged Cousin Calls Her a ‘Jew Hater’ | Video
Children’s entertainer Rachel “Ms. Rachel” Griffin-Accurso apologized again Friday after facing mounting social media backlash for liking an antisemitic Instagram comment, admitting, “I need to move slower. I made mistakes and misunderstood because I’m human.”
“I am blessed to have God and my family and friends and people who have understood that obviously this was an accident,” she added. “I have my own peace of mind in knowing it was an accident.”
The YouTube creator came under fire Thursday for liking a comment on one of her posts that read, “Free America from the Jews.” She said that she misunderstood what “liked by author” meant and intended to delete the comment. Backlash was swift Thursday — and a tearful video apology from Griffin-Accurso soon followed.
Later Thursday, New York comedian Jeff Lawrence, a man claiming to be her distant cousin through marriage, posted a video responding to the controversy, slamming her as a “Jew-hating antisemite.” Lawrence admitted he has never met Griffin-Accurso, which he said was evidence that she is antisemitic.
Representatives for Griffin-Accurso did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
In her follow-up apology Friday morning, Griffin-Accurso said she’s “changing how I engage with comments and social media” and further broke down the backstory of how she “misunderstood” a comment, thinking “it said that the author of the antisemitic comment ‘liked’ the comment,” not her.
Read her full apology at the Instagram link below:
“So I pinned it because I thought I didn’t ‘like’ the comment in the first place,” Griffin-Accurso explained. “I thought maybe it explained the situation. I said ‘ooooooh’ like ooooh they liked their own comment, not me.”
She continued: “I’m very sorry that I misread that comment and pinned it and said oooh. I’m sorry I didn’t understand what it was saying. I’m sorry I didn’t click on that account to see it was antisemitic. I’m sorry that I accidentally liked the original comment.”
“In our family I point out my mistakes and let my kids know they can make mistakes and we can figure anything out together,” she said. “I think when we hold everyone to standards where they can’t make honest mistakes, it makes people stay more silent in the face of injustice and I’m not going to do that.”
Griffin-Accurso then nodded to her longstanding advocacy for the children of Gaza amid the military conflict between Israel and Hamas — a stance that has led to heightened scrutiny around her politics and allegations that she influences young children to stand against Israel.
“Silence in the face of injustice might also cause me to be more loved and for more people to watch the show, but I’m not going to do that either,” she said. “I’m always going to speak out for kids whose human rights are being violated.”
Such accusations came to a head with Lawrence on Thursday, who alleged “Ms. Rachel” is funded by “extremist organizations funding the indoctrination of children all over the world” and that she hides the fact her husband, Aron Accurso, and children are of Jewish ancestry. (Griffin-Accurso led Thursday’s apology video stating that she has Jewish family.)
“She’s a hard-core Jew hater,” Lawrence said. “How do I know? I’ve never even met her. She lives in New York, I’ve lived in New York. We both lived here for decades; no interest in ever meeting or taking part in the Jewish side of her very own family, and I just want it out. Her kids are of Jewish descent, her husband’s of Jewish descent. She’s a Jew hater, and let her cry. I am sick of her fake tears … You’re not getting away with this. You’re not demonizing Israel and Jews … You deserve nothing but the pain and suffering that you’re enduring. You’re sick and you need help.”
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