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March is Women's History Month!

What The ...? Tom Hanks Drops 'F-Bomb' On 'Good Morning America'

TMZ.com was on the story quickly.
TMZ.com
TMZ.com was on the story quickly.

If we were asked to list actors who would be likely to slip up and drop the "f-bomb" on live, national TV, we don't think Tom Hanks would have come to mind.

But America's guy next door did just that on Good Morning America today. TMZ.com has the video (it has added a "bleep") and explains that "Elizabeth Vargas asked Hanks to speak in the same accent he does in his new movie, Cloud Atlas. Hanks said that would be tricky since it's mostly swear words ... and then he proceeded to try ... and cursed anyway!"

He apologized immediately, as did Vargas. And as GMA has tweeted, Hanks says that "Next time I'm on this show there will be a 7 second delay."

This is one more reason why Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary gave "f-bomb" its own entry.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.