MTV says sorry about the bad words but no comment from Les Grossman

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

When you are giving out awards that include ‘Best WTF Moment,’ should you really be surprised that there is a lot of swearing at your awards show?

Apparently the folks at MTV were. The cable network issued an apology for all the four-letter words that were thrown around by participants in its annual MTV Movie Awards show. Most were bleeped, but a few got through MTV’s censors.

The network said the MTV Movie Awards is a live televised event ‘known for irreverent comedy and a party atmosphere where our guests speak more freely than they otherwise might.’ The network went on to say it would mute all objectionable words from future airings and apologized to ‘those in our audience who were offended by any objectionable words that might have slipped by for the live airing.’

The swearing didn’t turn off viewers. The telecast drew 4.6 million viewers on MTV. Throw in the other Viacom networks that the event ran on and a total of 16.4 million people watched the ceremony, a 2% gain from last year.

One of the most bleeped offenders was Tom Cruise, who spent much of the night portraying hot-headed producer Les Grossman, his character from ‘Tropic Thunder.’ One has to wonder what the no-holds-barred Grossman would have thought of MTV’s apology.

-- Joe Flint