DETROIT-The city’s Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr apologized, on Wednesday, Aug. 14, for comments he had previously made to the Wall Street Journal, stating that Detroit was “dumb, lazy and happy.”

Orr, who filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history on July 18, told WXYZ that he was surprised his remarks were perceived as insulting. 

“For a long time the City was dumb, lazy, happy and rich,” Orr had told the Wall Street Journal, on Aug. 2. “Detroit has been the center of more change in the 20th century than I dare say virtually any other city, but that wealth allowed us to have a covenant (that held) if you had an eighth-grade education, you’ll get 30 years of a good job and a pension and great health care, but you don’t have to worry about what’s going to come.”

Orr said that he should have been more sensitive in making such a comment.

“I apologize to the extent anyone was offended,” he said. “Let’s get by this. That was a slip of the tongue. I was being dumb. In my wildest dreams, never would I have thought it would be interpreted as an insult.”

Orr’s Wall Street Journal interview angered some Detroit retirees. About 25 people held a 40- minute demonstration in protest of his remarks in front of the City Hall on Aug. 5.