Fans Accuse Travis Barker Of Calling Waiter A Racist Slur In Resurfaced Video
What did he just say?
Joe Seer | Shutterstock Kardashian fans are calling out Travis Barker after a resurfaced video shows him allegedly calling a waiter a slur.
In the clip, which was posted to Reddit, Barker is seen on an old episode of MTV's 'Punk'd' alongside his then-wife Shanna Moakler.
During the episode, Barker and Moakler had been out to dinner after she and host Ashton Kutcher teamed up to prank Barker, pretending that she had dated the waiter serving them at the restaurant they were eating at.
Travis Barker is accused of using a slur during the Punk'd episode.
The waiter was filmed repeatedly flirting with Moakler, and reminiscing on fake moments they'd had in the past. Barker can be seen getting uncomfortable throughout their interactions as he sits across from Moakler.
At one point, while the waiter reflects on a fake trip he and Moakler took to Palm Springs, Barker interjects, "Hey, can I get more water?"
The waiter then asks Barker when he'd gotten his haircut, which was styled in a mohawk at the time. Barker replied, "I've had it since I was, like, probably, like 16. I don't know."
That's when the waiter turns to Moakler and jokes, "I didn't know that was your type."
Barker immediately becomes irritated with the quip, telling the server, "Yeah, she usually dates [bleep]."
That upsets the server, who calmly tells Barker, "I really don't appreciate you calling me a [bleep] and I think it's kind of rude that you treat your girlfriend like that. You know 'cause she's a nice girl."
While MTV bleeped out the word Barker had said, and blurred out his mouth so viewers couldn't read his lips, people immediately thought Barker had used a slur.
On Reddit, under the comments of the video, many users speculated that Barker had called the waiter a "sand n-word," or that he'd called him the homophobic "f-slur."
"Ummm he just married a half-Armenian woman?! I guess this is two sides of the prejudice coin: hate the men, fetishize the women," one user commented.
However, the comedian who played the role of Moakler's ex appears to have addressed the matter in a now-deleted Facebook post.
Facebook
Ahmed Ahmed explains that Barker did not use a slur and rejects the idea that he is racist or homophobic.
Travis Barker previously wrote about the Punk'd episode in his memoir.
While Barker never addressed whether he'd said a slur or not, he did write about the prank in his book, 'Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums.'
Barker explained how he'd recently gotten home from Australia, and after the long flight, he'd taken pills and "was totally Xanaxed out," adding that it was his 29th birthday.
Moakler picked him up from the airport, telling him that she was going to take him out to dinner.
"Shanna took me to this restaurant that I had never heard of. I wasn’t sure why she hadn’t just taken me to Matsuhisa, which was our favorite place, but she told me that it was a super-cool spot and she had wanted to surprise me with it," Barker wrote.
"The first thing I noticed was that the restaurant was weirdly lit: it looked bright and awkward."
After offering Moakler some of his Vicodin or Ecstasy, which she declined, Barker took some Ecstasy at the table, which he explained he'd just started experimenting with.
"The waiter came out and started hitting on Shanna. She was calling him honey and he was calling me the guy with the interesting haircut. (I had a Mohawk.) Apparently, he and Shanna used to date: he was flirting with her and he kept insulting my haircut," he continued.
After some time of the prank going on, Barker became more irritable, even asking the server if he "wanted to go outside."
Eventually, Ashton Kutcher came out, telling Barker that it was a prank and he was being filmed for 'Punk'd,' and that the server and Moakler's alleged ex was actually comedian Ahmed Ahmed.
Barker concluded that he was still irritated by the waiter, "not because he had been hitting on Shanna, but because he had ruined my buzz."
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Follow her on Instagram.