Looks like you don’t mess with makeup artist and Eat Bulaga host Paolo Ballesteros. A Latino talk show host in a Spanish-language network in the US was fired when he bashed a photo of Ballesteros’s make-up transformation of US First Lady Michelle Obama.
Rodner Figueroa, who hosts the entertainment talk show El Gordo y La Flaca, commented on the makeup transformation, saying Obama “looked like she’s from the cast of Planet of the Apes, the movie.”
He was not fired for his comments on Ballesteros, but on the First Lady. In Figueroa’s apology and statement, he said that he was let go following a complaint from the First Lady’s office.
Univision, the network that employed him for 17 years, said that his statements against Obama “were completely reprehensible and in no way reflect the values or opinions of Univision.”
Figueroa added that his comment was not targeted towards the First Lady but to Ballesteros, whose makeup “left a lot to be desired.” His comment was made during a segment where he was critiquing Ballesteros’s makeup transformations. According to him:
I worked on two Univision shows where I commented about celebrity style, including the real family and Latin first ladies and I have never offended anybody because of their skin color, sexual orientation or nationality. I am a decent person, but a human in the end that makes mistakes like this one.
Aside from being fired, Figueroa was also removed from Univision’s talent roster. An article about his Emmy win was deleted from the network’s website as well.
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