'Late Night' Band Leader Questlove Accuses Bachmann-Backers Of 'Hurling Racial Slurs'

Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson is showing contrition for his veiled November swipe at GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, but he claims Bachmann's followers aren't mirroring his approach.

"Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" house band The Roots' drummer regrets pulling what he's deemed a "kamikaze" stunt Nov. 21 by playing GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann on-stage with a snippet from Fishbone's "Lyin' Ass Bitch," a gag he let his Twitter followers in on moments before Bachmann appeared.

Both Fallon and NBC executives personally issued Bachmann's apology, and executives guaranteed her The Roots would be "severely reprimanded." Questlove claims he forgot the song's title included the word "bitch" and really believed he'd be fired over the inside joke, according to Entertaiment Weekly.

“In the end, was it worth it? Absolutely not,” Questlove said. “It deeply offended a lot of women’s groups and non-Bachmann supporters, and for that I’m deeply sorry. I’m not parading like I’m the poster boy for the feminist movement, but those who truly know me know that that’s not me. I was really just going with her whole revisionist history angle, I wasn’t calling it out on her being a woman.”

Still, he claims Bachmann's backers aren't meeting him halfway.

He expressed amazement that his Twitter account has recently been flooded by harsh remarks from what he dubbed "Tea Party extremists" - many of them, racially charged.

“I’ve seen some really colorful epithets in the past four days, but ‘n—er f–khead ghetto stick’ is probably the one that takes the cake,” Questlove told Pitchfork.com. "I’m still trying to get my head around that one. Blocking 3,500 Tea Party extremists [on Twitter] in a three day period is no fun, especially when you’re a drummer dangerously close to carpal tunnel.”