Rob Thomas, the frontman for the '90s rock band Matchbox Twenty, came under fire after he made a seemingly racist joke while performing onstage during a solo concert in Melbourne, Australia on Saturday, Rolling Stone reported. The singer took to his official Facebook page to apologize for his comments and claimed he wasn't aware that using the term "black Australian" would offend the country's Indigenous Aboriginal natives.
"I've been doing it for so long, I've got the jet lag figured out. What you do is when you get on the plane on your way here, you start drinking," Thomas told the crowd on Saturday night, according to fan-shot footage obtained by TMZ. "And then I drink until I think I'm Australian, and then I keep drinking until I think I'm a black Australian."
Thomas' last comment was met with hushed boos from the crowd and Aussie hip hop artist Briggs spoke out against him on Twitter.
"So @thegame gets denied entry to Aus. But @ThisIsRobThomas can stand in front of 14k people and dismiss it's Indig. population as drunks?" Briggs wrote, referencing American hip-hop artist The Game's struggle to obtain a visa in order to tour in the country.
Shortly after more social media users expressed outrage, Thomas released a lengthy statement via Facebook explaining the intent behind his joke and asked fans for forgiveness for making an accidentally insensitive joke.
"I was so ignorant to the situation that when I heard people groan I actually thought THEY were being racist. I didn't know until TODAY that just the phrase 'black Australian' was racist all on it's own," Thomas wrote in his statement on Facebook. "I sat in my room and I cried when I found out."
"I am truly sorry for how this came across, most of all to the indigenous people here," he continued. "Australia has been so good to me for so long that I'm embarrassed I don't know more about the history and the culture."
Read his full Facebook statement below.
I would like to take an opportunity to further explain the comments I made in Melbourne last night. First, please...
Posted by Rob Thomas on Sunday, February 21, 2016
