U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand Scott Brown said he accepted advice that he should be more culturally aware following an official American inquiry into his conduct at a Peace Corps event in Samoa, the Stuff website reported on Wednesday.
Brown said that he was unaware at the time of the event in July that there were any complaints about his behavior or that his comments could be interpreted as offensive.
The complaint related to his arrival at the event, when he told some of the guests that they looked beautiful and that he told a woman serving food and drinks that she could make hundreds of dollars in the hospitality industry in the United States.
The complaints against Brown came from two serving female members of the Peace Corps, according to the Guardian.
Brown attributed the controversy to a cultural misunderstanding, telling Stuff that "We are in a different culture: even though we all speak English, sometimes when we say one thing it means the complete different thing."
The ambassador, however, also said he suspected that there was an element of political motivation behind the complaint, because at the event there were many people who did not like President Donald Trump."
Brown, a former senator from Massachusetts who was one of the president’s earliest and most vocal supporters, was one of the first ambassadors selected by Trump, according to WBUR.
A spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Wellington told the Guardian that "Ambassador Brown has nothing to add to the comments he made in this afternoon’s interview."
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