Tyler Seguin
NHL star Tyler Seguin, 21, who was recently acquired by the Dallas Stars in a trade with the Boston Bruins, apologized and blamed hackers after a tweet containing a homophobic slur was sent from his account (@tylerseguin92) on Saturday night:
“Only steers and queers in Texas, and I’m not a cow,” the tweet said.
The tweet is a version of a quote from the film Full Metal Jacket (watch the clip here), and if taken literally, it would mean Seguin is queer, since he’s not a cow and he’ll soon be a Texas resident. Which leads us to believe the tweet was probably sent by one of Seguin’s friends in Boston as a prank.
Seguin, expected to become the Stars first-line center, wasn’t slated to be introduced to the Dallas media until Tuesday, but the Stars were forced to issue a statement Sunday in response to his tweet.
“In no way, shape or form does the Dallas Stars organization condone or agree with the message that was sent out through Tyler Seguin’s Twitter feed last night,” the statement said. “We’ve addressed the issue directly with Tyler, and we’ll continue to work on educating our players regarding the importance of their conduct on all forms of social media.”
Seguin followed up the tweet by claiming that his account had been hacked and announcing he’s taking a break from Twitter.
“Twitter hacking has to stop. My apologies,” he wrote.
“After repeated attempts by ‘hackers’ to try to damage my reputation I have decided to shut down my twitter account for a while,” he added.
The hacking excuse would be easier to believe if this were the first time a tweet containing a homophobic slur had been sent from Seguin’s account. In April, when two of his friends were featured in a video by the rapper Slaine, Seguin retweeted the video and used the popular Twitter hashtag slur “no homo”:
“Just listened to the song in my bed. It gave me goosebumps no homo. My roommate and boy have some skills,” Seguin tweeted.
After the April incident, Seguin admitted to the tweet and apologized. He also met with Patrick Burke of the You Can Play Project, which promotes gay inclusion in sports.
“Yeah, he [Burke] told me his own personal stories about it and what not,” Seguin said later. “And I do have a few friends that are gay, so I know the lifestyle and I know sometimes with athletes a lot of chirping goes on. I think with myself, it was kind of late at night, just talking with my buddies, sometimes I forget that I’m on Twitter in front of a quarter-million people and not just talking to my friends. … It’s just another learning experience.”
Unfortunately for Seguin, the homophobic tweets may be a symptom of a bigger problem. According to a report from the Boston Herald, the Bruins traded Seguin in part because he was immature and partied too much.
Now that Seguin belongs to Dallas, let’s hope he’ll grow up. He could start by partnering with local organizations to send a positive message to LGBT youth and demonstrate that he’s not really a homophobe.
