The Bachelorette's Justin Glaze Apologizes for Tweets From When He Was 14-Years-Old

Justin Glaze, a contestant on the current season of The Bachelorette, is speaking out to apologize for tweets that he wrote over 10 years ago when he was just a young teenager.

In the tweets, the 27-year-old investment sales consultant reportedly said homophobic slurs, promoted colorism, and made insulting comments about Black women, according to People.

The tweets resurfaced on Reddit this past weekend, days before Justin‘s one-on-one date with Katie Thurston aired during the latest episode.

Click inside for Justin Glaze’s response…

Justin appeared on the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast to talk about the controversial tweets.

“As I reflect on everything I just went through with this whole journey, oftentimes people ask me what I took from it,” Justin said (via People). “And one of the biggest takeaways for me was just my personal growth, and one of those things is being able to hold myself accountable, which is something that historically I wasn’t able to do. So, I have no issue with owning up and apologizing from the bottom of my heart for the really hurtful words that I used.”

He added, “The last thing that I want to do is run from it. That’s not who I am. I just want to speak from the heart, and hopefully, people will get an understanding of where I was then versus where I am now. When I look back at 14-year-old Justin, I was in high school and quite frankly I was the type of person who for whatever reason felt the need to fit in and say funny things and keep up with what my peers were doing and saying. The folks I had associated with would throw around really hurtful slurs that, at the time, I didn’t really think anything of.”

Justin says he doesn’t want people to defend him. “What I said was ignorant and hurtful then [and ] it’s ignorant and hurtful now,” he said.

“No matter how long it was, those words shouldn’t have come out of my mouth. I’m obviously in a much different place now, over a decade later as a 27-year-old and I can look back and be ashamed of the words that I used…I know as I’ve matured and evolved and grown as a person, I’m a totally different version of Justin than I was,” he said. “I know those words would never come out of my mouth, because I know the weight that they carry, no matter what context they’re used in. I understand how much allyship and support those groups that I offended need.”

Katie sent home nearly half of the men in the latest episode of the show.