Dr. Oz on Incest: More Than First Cousin? ‘Not a Big Problem.’

The problem with being a celebrity before you enter politics is that you’ve definitely already said too much. And considering that Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for the Pennsylvania Senate, has already been saying too much as a candidate, you know the things coming out of his mouth must have been pretty bad before.

In an interview with morning radio show The Breakfast Club in February 2014, host Angela Yee asked Oz to weigh in on a question sent in by a listener about someone struggling with an incestuous relationship.

“I’m going to ask you this and you tell me if this is safe for this person, okay?” Yee prompted Oz. “Well, he said, ‘Yee, I can’t stop smashing my cousin.’ That means sleeping with.” (Thank you, Yee.)

She continued to read out the question: “‘We hooked up at a young age and now in our 20s, she still wants it. No matter how much I want to stop, I always give it to her. Help me.’ What advice would you give that person?”

Hm. I might refer them to counseling about how to rebuild proper familial relationships and set boundaries. But Oz took it in a different direction:

Oz: If you’re more than a first cousin away, it’s not a big problem.

Yee: Okay, so second cousin is fine to smash.

Charlamagne: It’s so funny, cause I knew that.

DJ Envy: How did you know that?

Charlamagne: Cause I’m from the country! Third cousins?

Oz: Yeah. It’s fine.

Oz went on to give a basic rehashing of genetics with the hosts. “Every family has genetic strengths and weaknesses,” he explained. “And so the reason we naturally crave people who are not so like us is because you just mix the gene pool up a little bit so that if I had one gene for, let’s say, hemophilia, which is a classic example where you bleed a lot if you cut yourself, I don’t want to marry a cousin who has the same hemophilia gene, because the chance of our child having both those genes is much higher.”

That’s fine…benign even. But then Oz kept! talking! “You know, that’s why children, girls don’t like their fathers’ smell. Their pheromones will actually repel their daughters because they’re not supposed to be together,” Oz told the hosts. “My daughters hate my smell.”

Yee jabbed, “Maybe you just smell,” to which Oz replied, “My wife says she likes the smell.”

Then, they all just moved on from the incest question and chatted for another 15 minutes, giving zero useful advice or emotional empathy to someone struggling with incest.

I just… I just don’t know what made this man think he should run for office. Listen for yourself, if you can stomach it: