Former Patriots tight end Christian Fauria has been suspended from his Boston radio job for a racist on-air impression of agent Don Yee.
Fauria was trying to make a joke during a discussion on WEEI of Boston Herald columnist Ron Borges’ column about Tom Brady, which was based on a hoax text from someone pretending to be Yee. Borges got suspended from the Herald for the bogus column, and now Fauria has been suspended from WEEI for his impression of Yee.
“Earlier today during his show, Christian Fauria impersonated athlete agent, Don Yee in an insensitive and ill-conceived attempt at humor. We regret Christian’s commentary and we apologize to Mr. Yee and those offended by the segment,” WEEI said in a statement. “We do not support or condone Christian’s comments, and we have suspended him for five days effective immediately.”
On the air, Fauria began by saying, “I’m gonna be Don Yee. For me, I don’t know why, Don Yee sounds like an Asian guy.” He then proceeded to speak in a stereotypical Asian accent, while his co-hosts laughed like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard, and music typical of Asian martial arts movies played on the air. The sketch wasn’t funny, unless you think, “Haha, let’s laugh at an Asian-American” is funny.
WEEI did not say anything about disciplining the other hosts who laughed, or the producer who played that music. Fauria later apologized on Twitter.
“Earlier today I made a horrible attempt at humor. In a segment during the show, I impersonated agent Don Yee in an insensitive and regrettable way. I want to publicly apologize to Don and anyone in the audience who heard it,” Fauria wrote. “I have also reached out to Don directly to personally apologize. I have been disciplined by WEEI management and I fully support their decision.”
Fauria played for the Patriots from 2002 to 2005. He also played in Seattle, Washington and Carolina.