In a statement published on his Twitter feed, Jones says his six daughters (Jolie, Martina, Kidada, Rashida, Rachel, and Kenya) staged a “family intervention” in which they lovingly told him to stop shitting on everyone in future interviews.
“When you’ve been fortunate enough to have lived such a long & crazy life,” he says, “certain details about specific events…come flooding back all at once, & even at 85, it’s apparent that ‘wordvomit’ & bad-mouthing is inexcusable.” He goes on:
Once of the hardest things about this situation is that, this bad-mouthing has contradicted the very real messages I tried to relay about racism, inequality, homophobia, poverty…you name it. And of course I don’t want that. I have already reached out to my friends privately, but when you live a public life, you have a responsibility to be an example, & since I do lead a public life, I wanted to make a public apology.”
His sign off is really quite something:
So, I encourage you all to please grow with me & keep on keepin’ on. Love, an 85 year old bow-legged man who is still learning from his mistakes. ((:0))
I’m not sure what that emoticon is supposed to represent, but I’m thinking it’s either A) an extremely happy face, or B) the shocked look he gave Rashida and Kidada when they showed up at his door.