New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said Wednesday that she flipped the bird during the Krewe of Tucks parade in response to a float rider who did the same to her.
Cantrell's comments were her first since video of her gesture made the rounds on social media during the final weekend of the 2023 Mardi Gras season. The mayor was caught on camera enjoying the parade and presumably shouting, "I love you," before making the obscene gesture, which an administration spokesperson at the time characterized as being in "jest" and "all in good fun."
"I was flipped the bird ... and, um... I just had to go ahead and do a little bird flip and say, 'I love you,'" Cantrell said at a news briefing Wednesday.
“It was a shot, in my opinion, not at me directly but at the city of New Orleans, and I’m the mayor of the city. … To be so disrespectful to the city that has worked so hard to get the privilege of having Mardi Gras, that’s what that was all about. Hopefully that will never happen again."