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The author of the Bible-inspired Will Wilder series of children's books mocked Lara Spencer for apologizing for her insensitive comments about boys and ballet.Â
Good Morning America cohost Lara Spencer apologized on-air for playing into stereotypes about boys practicing ballet in a segment last week. Now Fox News commentator Raymond Arroyo -- author of the Bible-inspired Will Wilder series of children's adventure books -- not only mocked Spencer for her apology but dug in with sick stereotypes about ballet and masculinity Thursday on Fox's The Ingraham Angle.
"Can you believe this?" Arroyo said of Spencer's apology. "This is what politicians do when they offend an ethnic group."
"I was in ballet for one class. I got kicked out," host Laura Ingraham interjected.
"I did ballet as part of my acting training. People razz you," said Arroyo, a graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts in New York City. "If you walk around in tights they're gonna razz you. It's not exactly the, you know, exemplary of the male..." he said, before Ingraham interrupted.
Arroyo (news director and anchor of EWTN News, the news division of Eternal Word Television Network) and Ingraham lambasted Spencer for using a segment on GMA to elevate the voices of male dancers while hundreds of male dancers participated in a class outside.
"I screwed up," Spencer said on GMA after the dance world and social media exploded in response to her laughing at U.K. Prince George's love of ballet. "The comment I made about dance was stupid and insensitive, and I am deeply sorry."
"I have learned about the bravery that it takes for a young boy to pursue a career in dance," she said. "And last night, I sat down with three influential dancers who lived it firsthand."
Shortly after the segment in which Spencer mocked George's overscheduled childhood with an emphasis on the ballet piece of his curriculum, she issued an apology on her Instagram.
But the outrage roiled throughout the weekend with members of the Broadway and dance communities calling her out for perpetuating a hateful stereotype.
Arroyo, whose children's books have been dubbed the "Catholic 'Indiana Jones' for Kids" by the National Catholic Register, leaned into antiquated notions of masculinity to further shame men and boys who practice ballet.
"This ended [the Spencer controversy], by the way, with 300 hundred ballet dancers, mostly boys, doing a class in Times Square," Arroyo said, giggling.
"Look at that," he said, smirking and pointing to images of men dancing.
"I hope she offends a mechanic next so the boys know how to change the oil in the car," Arroyo said.
Watch the exchange below.
