Mississippi news anchor Barbie Bassett has been absent from the air after quoting a racially offensive Snoop Dogg lyric during a WLBT broadcast earlier this month.
The anchor, who is white, has not appeared on the regional NBC affiliate since March 8 and is no longer listed as part of the news team on the show’s website, per local newspaper Clarion Ledger.
While sharing the news desk with two other reporters, Bassett engaged in a conversation about the rapper’s wine line. When her colleague suggested a collaboration between Snoop Dogg and a journalist, she said, “That’d be pretty cool.”
Her colleague joked, “Before we know it, she’d have a Snoop Dogg tattoo on her shoulder.”
Bassett replied, “Fo shizzle, my nizzle,” seemingly in reference to Snoop Dogg’s 2002 hit “Suited N Booted.” While the rapper didn’t invent the usage of that term, he is known for popularizing it.
According to Genius, the earliest known usage of the -izzle infix was in 1981 with Frankie Smith’s “The Double Dutch Bus,” which was later sampled by Missy Elliott – thus, lending itself to Black vernacular.
In Snoop Dogg’s song, “Nizzle” is slang for the N-word.
Bassett sparked a similar controversy in 2022 for referring to a Black reporter’s grandmother as her “grandmammy” during a broadcast. The term is commonly associated with slavery.
The anchor later apologized, saying that her comment was “insensitive and hurtful.” Bassett apologized to the reporter, Carmen Poe, and the public.
As for her latest remark, Bassett and the regional station have refrained from commenting.
“As I am sure you can understand, WLBT is unable to comment on personnel matters,” Ted Fortenberry, the station’s regional vice president and general manager, told The New York Post in an email statement.
The outlet continued to report that Bassett’s latest racist comment garnered the attention of radio host Charlamagne tha God. Defending her, he said on The Breakfast Club, “I don’t think she should have been fired for that. She might not even know what ‘nizzle’ means, yo. Come on, like stop. That’s not a reason to fire that woman.”
However, given that this wasn’t Bassett’s first rodeo, many don’t believe she needs a third shot.
