June 02, 2017 at 09:50PM
In October, shortly after Donald Trump's shocking "Access Hollywood" tape was made public, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti posted an explosive tweet about Trump's daughter Ivanka.
Ivanka had publicly said she was surprised by her father's crude language in the video, in which he told the TV personality Billy Bush that he could grab women "by the p---y" because he was a star.
"That's not language consistent with any conversation I've ever had with him, certainly, or any conversation I've overheard," she said at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit. "So it was a bit jarring."
When Peretti read her statement, he called her out on Twitter.
"Surprised Ivanka would be shocked by lewd language," Peretti wrote. "I met her once & she casually said: 'I've never seen a mulatto c--k, but I'd like to!'"
Peretti's tweet caused an instant uproar on Twitter, even among his staff. BuzzFeed's editor-in-chief tweeted in response, asking whether there was a doctor on a flight Peretti was on.
Trump denied Peretti's claim.
"I am not sure if this was meant to be a joke, but in case there is any ambiguity, this is a complete and total lie," she told BuzzFeed.
So what prompted Peretti's tweet, and has he heard from Trump's team since?
Peretti told Business Insider the backstory during an interview for our podcast, "Success! How I Did It."
Here's that portion of the Q&A:
Alyson Shontell: What was the thought process behind sending that tweet? Were you drunk? Were you OK? What happened?
Jonah Peretti: You know how if you meet a celebrity, you have a story of "The time I met this person ..." and you remember it? Not everyone's met a celebrity, but a lot of people have this experience if you live in New York or LA. The person came into the restaurant you're in and they did something funny or whatever, and you remember it.
For me, that was what I remember about Ivanka. We had a mutual friend. She came out for drinks. We were doing sake bombs at a dive bar in Chinatown on the Lower East Side. It was just a shock that she said that. It was like, what?
I didn't tweet it or share it. It was just one of those things you [recall] to a close friend.
But then I got off a flight and I was in the Burbank airport, and I was reading Twitter. There was a BuzzFeed News story that had quoted her saying she was shocked at her father's language, something like that. I saw it and I was like, what? She's shocked? She uses that kind of language! How could she be saying she's shocked by her dad's language, like she's some choir boy?
Anyway, I saw that, and then without really thinking much — obviously, because you wouldn't tweet that if you were thinking a lot — I just retweeted that tweet with a comment of, 'Funny she'd be shocked by it, because this is what she said the one time I met her."
Shontell: I remember Ben Smith, your head of news, saying, "Are there medics on this flight?" You of all people should know to not tweet before flying, but I guess you were off the plane.
Peretti: I was getting off the plane. I did kind of get very quiet after that. I didn't follow up with an additional explanation or tweets.
Shontell: Right. If I remember correctly, BuzzFeed wrote an article interviewing you about what your tweet was.
Peretti: Shani [Hilton, head of US news] calls me, and I can't not take the call when it's Shani calling me. She's a very key, important, and powerful person in our newsroom. She calls me and is like, "I have a reporter here who wants to talk to you." I was like, ugh, I never would've taken a call from any other news sources, but I have to when it's —
Shontell: — it's your employee.
Peretti: I have to answer the phone. Then I did some awkward interview with a BuzzFeed employee about why I sent it.
Shontell: Have you talked to Ivanka?
Peretti: I haven't talked to her.
Check out the full interview with Peretti and subscribe to "Success! How I Did It" on Acast or iTunes for more episodes:
Check out previous episodes with:
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