Wendy Williams apologized Wednesday to the cleft community for comments she made about actor Joaquin Phoenix’s lip scar on a recent episode of her show after online backlash. — cleft lip, cleft palate.”Phoenix has rarely spoken about his facial difference except for a brief mention in a Vanity Fair profile from last year, in which he describes it as “not a surgically fixed cleft” but a “nonsurgical scar he was born with.” Cleft lips and cleft palates “occur when a baby’s lip or mouth do not form properly during pregnancy,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which notes that about 1 in every 1,600 babies is born with a cleft lip and cleft palate in the United States. The athlete, who was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate, has called on Williams to make a charitable donation to the community over the past week. #cleftstrong#1in700#cleftcutiepic.twitter.com/n3MxaLvl5f — Adam Bighill (@Bighill44) January 15, 2020Days after her initial comments, Williams responded to Bighill with an apology, saying that “The Wendy Williams Show” has donated to two charities benefiting the cleft community in his son’s honor. “We’re thinking about Beau today as he is in surgery,” she wrote on Twitter.

Source: Huffington Post January 16, 2020 16:29 UTC