Poor Conor McGregor.

That’s what the multi-million-dollar MMA fighter wants you to think after he was criticized for screaming a gay slur multiple times after training partner Andre Fili’s fight a couple weeks ago.

Talking on RTE ONE’s Late Late Show, McGregor first explained that he was so distraught over the result of a fight that he couldn’t help but use a gay slur.

From Bloody Elbow:

“I was watching a fighter, a sparring partner, a training partner, a friend, a brother, who has given his health – his body health, his brain health, everything – to help me prepare for fights; to give my brain health and my body health to entertain the public. So that's the fighter I was going to watch and support.”

After that nonsense about him giving his brain so he can earn $100 million to lose a boxing match, he then went straight-up crying about him being the victim here for his own use of the slur.

“It's another one where things just get blown out and they love to just… Any chance they get they love to throw me under the bus. It's just one of those things.”

McGregor also said his screaming of a gay slur multiple times is no big deal because he wasn’t yelling it “at two people of the same sex kissing.”

It demonstrates a complete failure on McGregor’s part to understand the power and impact of the word, and how him using it gives the slur even more power and impact.

Of course, he could have been calling a closeted gay man a slur, which of course underlies the power of him using the slur in the first place.

Whatever he feels in his heart, he has supported equality and also empowered the use of gay slurs.

McGregor has, as he’s said, expressed support for same-sex marriage, and that’s great.

Yet that doesn’t absolve him of using a gay slur repeatedly. And if he used it so casually that night, and now defends his use of the word, you know he has used it all his life and very well may continue to.

I got slammed a couple weeks ago on social media for not labeling McGregor a “homophobe.” It’s a foolish debate. Whatever he feels in his heart, he has supported equality and also empowered the use of gay slurs. He can do both things at the same time, and one does not mask the other.

Saying he meant “no disrespect,” then blaming everyone else when disrespect was taken, doesn’t add many positive vibes to this.

If he truly wants to embrace the LGBT community, he’ll decide to learn and understand the power of these slurs and stop using this kind of language.

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