Lorde apologized after posting what seemed like a tone-deaf joke about Whitney Houston’s death

Yesterday just wasn’t Lorde’s day. On April 5th, the New Zealand artist posted a photo of a bathtub to her Instagram and captioned the photo using one of Whitney Houston’s most memorable lyrics, “And iiii will always love you.”

Followers were quick to note something major: Whitney Houston died in a bathtub in 2012. The cause of death was accidental drowning likely related to heart disease and prolonged drug abuse. Both fans of Lorde and Houston were appalled by the tone-deaf post, and Lorde was quick to apologize and clarify the comment.

"Extremely extremely poorly chosen quote. I'm so sorry for offending anyone — I hadn't even put this together I was just excited to take a bath," Lorde posted on her Instagram story after deleting the bathtub post. "I'm an idiot," she wrote. "Love Whitney forever and ever. Sorry again."

She followed up with, “IT IS NOT MY FCKN DAY TODAY.” It seriously wasn’t.

Yes, Lorde’s post was indeed unfortunate. But in her defense, it genuinely seemed like an honest mistake and in no way a conscious effort to make a joke at Houston’s expense.

And as is often the way on the internet, one person’s mistake is another person’s meme treasure.

Realizing that Lorde’s post was most likely just an unfortunate oversight, people on Twitter went to town with the jokes. false

https://twitter.com/udfredirect/status/982055909374427141

https://twitter.com/udfredirect/status/982053072661655553

false

false

Lorde, we all make mistakes and we forgive you on this one (and also, R.I.P. Whitney Houston — the loss still hurts). Let this be a lesson to double check, reread, and fact-check before posting anything to social media.