Awards Show Profanities Stir Protests

Profanities uttered by the heavy metal band Guns N’ Roses were heard by millions of TV viewers tuned in to the American Music Awards and brought a barrage of complaints and an apology from ABC.

“As a policy we can’t discuss specific numbers, but I can acknowledge that we have received many calls during the telecast and this morning protesting the fact that the program contained offensive language,” network spokeswoman Janice Gretemeyer said this morning from New York.

Guns N’ Roses, with a reputation for raunchy behavior, won two heavy metal awards during the Monday night ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium.

The band was cut off in mid-sentence while accepting its first award when guitarist Slash used a profanity. Slash and fellow band member Duff (Rose) McKegan stumbled to the stage and draped themselves over the speaker’s stand to accept the second award. They were quickly cut off when they began using profanities again.

The three-hour telecast was shown live in the East. The offensive language was edited out of the tape-delayed West Coast version.

“Live programming leads to spontaneous occurrences and unfortunately last night’s was regrettable,” Dick Clark, producer of the show, said in a statement. “We will take all steps possible toward preventing a recurrence.”

Five months ago, Dick Clark Productions was victimized by comedian Andrew Dice Clay when he used a profanity on the MTV Video Music Awards. The Sept. 6 show was also televised live nationwide on cable’s music channel.