Video Resurfaces of Puerto Rican TV Host Saying the N-Word on WAPA-TV Show

Jun 19, 2020
12:47 PM

As news that Univision Communications had terminated the contract of Luis Dávila Colón and canceled his El Azote radio show on WKAQ for his saying the N-word on his June 15 show, a video clip showing a Puerto Rican television host for WAPA-TV’s “Lo sé todo” program where the host also uses the N-Word on air has resurfaced.

The clip, shared by a new anonymous Twitter profile created in June called @mrspanqueque is about four seconds long. All it is shows one of the “Lo sé todo” hosts, Yulianna Vargas, saying the following in Spanish: “Y hasta n•gger le han dicho.” (And they have even called this person “n•gger.”)

The video posted by the profile, who has yet to answer any tweet replies about when this video took place or how old it is, was in direct response to Dávila Colón’s firing by Univision Communications. From what Latino Rebels can determine, the clip is about two years old.

On Wednesday night, Latino Rebels broke the story about Dávila Colón’s use of the N-word during his June 15 show. As part of its reporting, LR contacted Univision Communications, the parent company of Univision Radio, Univision Puerto Rico and WKAQ. In a statement sent last Wednesday night, Univision vowed to take “swift and appropriate action.”

By Thursday morning, Dávila Colón was fired and his show was canceled. The quick response by Univision Communications comes at time where a global movement for Black Lives has raised serious questions about how companies are responding to examples of white supremacy. In addition, the Dávila Colón N-word incident shed a light on how race and racism are topics rarely discussed in Puerto Rico’s public discourse.

Less than 24 hours after he was fired, Dávila Colón began to stream online on his personal profiles, saying that he will take his voice to social media. Defenders of Dávila Colón spoke out in favor of the controversial host, saying that what he said was taken out of context and also falsely accusing Latino Rebels of being part of a leftist plot to take him down. Citing no evidence (Latino Rebels is owned by nonprofit media company Futuro Media), defenders sent several comments to Latino Rebels profiles, including serious threats against the site. The more serious threats have been reported to the corresponding social media networks.

Meanwhile, Latino Rebels has contacted both WAPA-TV and “Lo sé todo” about the clip in question. As of this posting, nobody from the network or the show has returned messages for comments.

UPDATE: June 19, 2020, 2 pm ET:

WAPA-TV Has confirmed that the video is from 2017 and it is Yulianna Vargas. The network said that the show will address the video in a statement that will be broadcast on Friday during the airing of “Lo sé todo.” WAPA-TV said that it will be sending a written copy of the statement to Latino Rebels after the statement is read on air.

UPDATE: June 19, 2020, 4:30 pm ET:
Vargas has offered an explanation and wants people to view the “context” of what she said. She said she regrets her words and apologized but she wants to move on. The context was about how a KKK member used the racial slur again Univision journalist Ilia Calderón yet it still leaves questions about why say it in the first place. Vargas still said it, just like the KKK member said it. And it looks like she was reading it from a statement.

Latino Rebels did reach out to WAPA-TV again to see if the network had a statement or was planning on any response. As of this update, the network has not returned requests for comment.

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Julio Ricardo Varela is founder and publisher of Latino Rebels, part of Futuro Media. He tweets from @julito77.