Da Brat has apologized for joking that she and her wife Jesseca ‘Judy’ Harris-Dupart made to select a non-black sperm donor.
The 49-year-old rapper during an appearance on Tamron Hall on Thursday said her comments were ‘taken way out of context’.
‘If I offended anybody, I do apologize. But it was a joke between me and my wife and the doctor, like, we joke like that, we play around so it wasn’t meant to be offensive in any way,’ Da Brat said, according to an article by People.
Da Brat and Jesseca, 41, on a recent episode of their reality show ‘Brat Loves Judy,’ were shown meeting with their fertility doctor and weighing their options.
When the results of Jesseca’s genetic testing were taken into account, the couple had only 224 donors whose samples they could use – of whom only one was black.
Their fertility specialist Dr. Obehi Asemota informed them that ‘there are not enough black donors – black sperm donors, black egg donors.’
Da Brat, whose legal name is Shawntae Harris-Dupart, then joked that the single black donor available to them looked ‘like Jiminy Cricket.’
Some Social media users took offense at the Jiminy Cricket jibe and slammed the couple for choosing not to use a black donor.
Da Brat appeared with Judy on Tamron Hall to add context to her comments.
‘I cracked jokes about almost everybody that I saw, that one just happened to make it in the show. I wasn’t trying to be mean or say anything negative about Black people,’ she said.
The Chicago native added: ‘We were looking for a Black donor. We’re Black, we wanted a Black donor. So it was just misconstrued and taken way out of context.”
Jesseca responded to the outrage on her Instagram last week, writing: ‘So , as a mother of 3 beautiful black kids , and even a black grand baby I want to CLARIFY S*** to avoid this STORYLINE from continuing that we choose our donor off of looks and that we didn’t want a black donor.’
She laid out a seven-point explanation of her and Da Brat’s choice that began: ‘1) WE HAD NO IDEA GOING INTO THIS THAT our chances of a black donor would be slim to none 2) that I was a carrier of so many disorders 3) that our window was SOOOO slim and such high risk cus of age and more’.
Jesseca added: ‘4) with my genetic testing I’m the carrier of 4 disorders , that reduced our chances of a black donor down to 1 person and that 1 person had very limited info / portfolio to judge on ….. including BACKGROUND’.
She noted: ‘5) I’m honestly disappointed more than anything at the storyline , but do understand the lack of knowledge on IVF in our community cus a lot of people don’t even realize all the things when it comes with the journey including LACK OF BLACK DONORS, genetic testing , age where most your eggs are gone , etc’.
Jesseca acknowledged: ‘6) the headlines are misleading but also my wife made a distasteful joke and now it’s attached to the headline and making it seem like we choose strictly off of looks and we didn’t at all attempt to find a black donor when in fact not only did we try but we also waited to see if more would pop up over time – but had to stay within the window that we had to choose.’
She pointed out: ‘Furthermore people think just cus u have money that ANYTHING is possible but no amount of money was Changing the cryobanks inventory.’
Further, Jesseca wrote: ‘7) our baby created with a HEALTHY baby first mindset once we learned all the things , was a hard decision and of course we didn’t want to add any other stigmas or anything to our child but we had SEVERELY limited options .’
In conclusion, she offered: ‘Thanks to all the people supporting us on our journey and I truely hope this brings Awareness to more black men to donate.’
Da Brat and Jesseca went down the aisle last February, then joyfully announced a year later that the former is pregnant with their first child together.
