“Cocktails with Queens” co-host LisaRaye McCoy is known and respected for her unfiltered opinions on the show, but fans think the actress took it a step too far when she appeared to defend disgraced radio host Rob Lederman’s remarks about Black skin tones.
Lederman thought it would be a great idea to compare the complexions of Black women to toaster settings — and basically said that he did not care for darker skin tones.
Lederman kicked off the offensive topic by acknowledging that he “may get into trouble for this.”
“We have (our toaster settings)… at the attractiveness of women that I find to be attractive, so I will never go to a Serena Williams level,” Lederman said as his co-hosts, Rich “Bull” Gaenzler and co-host Chris Klein, laughed. “But I am very comfortable at a Halle Berry level. I need a little bit of mulatto still coming through… Gayle King is not even on my toaster level.”
A statement from Cumulus Media said Lederman’s comments were in direct violation of the company’s programming principles and that “the remainder of the show’s on-air talent” had been suspended. He has since been fired.
The “Queens with Cocktails” ladies went on to discuss the incident… and McCoy took his side.
“I don’t know. I’m not there with it,” she said on the show. “I just think that we’re so sensitive now. Everybody gonna get caught up now because I think everybody is gon’ be so sensitive and ain’t gon’ know what to say and how to say it and it’s going to take the fun out of everything and everybody gon’ get slapped with lawsuits and defamation and it’s gon’ to be tedious and ain’t nobody gonna be able to talk about nothing.”
Of course, many viewers were left dumbfounded by her words, but McCoy insists that she is not a colorist.
“I was commenting on his preference to Black women, that’s what I was talking about,” she told TMZ. “You know, my grandbaby is brown-skinned, so by no means would I want my grandbaby to think her grandmother is a colorist. I know what my preference is.” She later added, “And I can’t stand by someone that doesn’t — that’s a racist — and I don’t know that about them. I can’t even comment on that, I don’t even know.”
