Mario Lopez is walking back comments he made about trans children.
In an interview conducted by conservative commentator Candace Owens last month, actor and "Extra" host said that it's "dangerous" for a parent to listen to a very young child who identifies as transgender.
After experiencing backlash online, Lopez released a statement through his publicist, in which he apologized.
"The comments I made were ignorant and insensitive, and I now have a deeper understanding of how hurtful they were," he said. "I have been and always will be an ardent supporter of the LGBTQ community, and I am going to use this opportunity to better educate myself. Moving forward I will be more informed and thoughtful.”
(MORE: Cast of 'Saved by the Bell' had a reunion and our inner child is rejoicing)Lopez, 45, told Owens that while he is registered to vote as an independent, he identifies as a conservative. The father of three young children, he spoke to Owens about his family and the concerns he has about how some in Hollywood are parenting their children.
"I think if you come from a place of love you really can't go wrong, but at the same time, if you’re three years old and you’re saying you’re feeling a certain way or you think you’re a boy or a girl or whatever the case may be, I think it’s dangerous as a parent to make that determination then," he said. "It's sort of alarming, and my gosh, I just think about the repercussions later on."
"I think the formative years is when you start having those discussions and really start making these declarations," he continued. "It's way too young [for a child to declare he or she is transgender]. I just personally think it's way too young."
Conversation erupted on social media, with some criticizing Lopez for his comments, and others defending him. "Queer Eye" star Jonathan Van Ness tweeted, "If you’re not raising a child who is part of the LGBTQ+ community you should really be quiet. You don’t need to understand what you do not know. You both need to do better, your causal transphobia is par for the course. Christianity says leave judgment to god." His co-star, Karamo Brown, added that he was "disappointed" to read Lopez's comments.
"I don’t think @MarioLopezExtra should be ‘canceled’. But I do believe he should be given the opportunity to learn why his comments are harmful to trans youth and their parents," he added.
However, Donald Trump Jr. stood by the host, calling him "as reasonable and accepting as anyone could be."
Elsewhere in the interview, Lopez also discussed what Owens called "radicalized feminism," and the hashtag #believewomen, which Lopez said he first saw around the time Christine Blasey Ford accused Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.
"I think blanket statements or hashtags like #believewomen ... [is] a very dangerous hashtag ... because people lie and sometimes those people are women," Lopez said. "God forbid, you have a son out there and a girl may have felt a certain way about a situation, dismissed, hurt, whatever, and is feeling vengeful and just decides to tell a certain story that's not exactly true, come back and really hurt that individual."
"If we're just supposed to assume she's telling the truth without any sort of proof, evidence, that's incredibly dangerous," he continued. "And the other way around too -- you can't just believe men either."
