Ilie Nastase believes that he could only have been considered to be racist if he had said toward Serena Williams’ unborn child, “Ugly, black baby.”
Last Friday, Nastase came under fire when he said of Williams’ announcement that she was pregnant, “Let’s see what color it has. Chocolate with milk?” in reference to the fact that Williams is in a biracial relationship.
After hearing about the comments, Williams of course slammed Nastase for “making racist comments,” but Nastase thinks the whole thing was just a misunderstanding.
–Serena Williams slams tennis star’s racist comment about unborn child–
In an interview with Romanian website new.ro, he explained, “Anything I say, I am the bad boy. … If I said she would have an ugly, black baby, that would have been racist.”
He then compared his own comments to those of Williams’ father, Richard, who called Irina Spirlea “a big white turkey” in 1997 before he tried to question why people were even reporting about his comments, claiming that they were just trying to hype up hatred.
“Why write a news story like this? Just to have a scandal? There are many more important things going on. … These things are pure madness,” he said.