Ariana Grande is really, really sorry that Americans freely eat poison

Ariana Grande posted her full I-don’t-really-hate-America mea culpa on social media Thursday, noting that she needed to pay attention to her role as a public figure.

And then she pretty much called doughnuts poison.

Grande was caught on surveillance video late Saturday night with a friend at a doughnut shop where both appeared to have a great time licking unattended, unpurchased doughnuts. Afterward, as she was shown a tray of large pastries, the pop star declared the treats disgusting after declaring, “I hate Americans. I hate America.”

“need to clean up this mouth of mine & set a better example for my babes. i apologize and i love you. always learning,” she wrote on Twitter by way of introduction to her apology, which can be read in full here. In the apology, she said her words were taken out of context.

However, she didn’t acknowledge any improper pastry-licking that might have gone on at Wolfee Donuts in Lake Elsinore.

“AS an advocate for healthy eating, food is very important to me and I sometimes get upset my how freely we as Americans eat and consume things without giving any thought to the consequence that it has on our health and society as a whole,” she wrote in what appears to be an attempt to reframe the Doughnutgate conversation.

“The fact that the United States has one of the highest child obesity rate in the world frustrates me. We need to do more to educate ourselves and our children about the dangers of overeating and the poison that we put into our bodies. We need to demand more from our food industry.”

Authorities might in fact be demanding more from the tiny part of the food industry that is Wolfee’s: The Riverside County Department of Environmental Health is, according to L.A. Now, investigating the doughnut shop over the alleged food tampering.

California laws require restaurants to keep food safe from contact by customers. Like, say, a pop star, her boy toy and their respective tongues. Apparently, the health cops want to know if the shop regularly leaves its doughnuts out on display, rather than under glass.

Doughnut store manager Ricky Marin told L.A. Now that the victimized doughnuts were placed on the top of the case by a store employee as she was swapping out older doughnuts with fresh ones.

In her apology, Grande mentioned the comment being part of “a private moment with my friend ryann.” That’d be dancer Ryann Alvarez. The guy who was with her — and kissing her, and licking with her — was identified by TMZ as backup dancer Ricky Alvarez, Ryann’s brother.

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For the record, 2:10 p.m.: An earlier version of this post mistakenly identified Ricky Alvarez as Ryann Alvarez.

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And more about that apology: Rob Lowe, for one, ain’t buying it.

“As my grandpa would say: ‘Yeah, sure. Pull the other leg, it plays jingle bells!’ #Lame,” he wrote in a tweet quoting a story about Grande’s apology. Then he added, “Cannot wait for the new Arianna Grande/Dixie Chicks jam to drop! #IActuallyLoveAmerica.”

Yup, he invoked the Great Dixie Chicks Debacle of 2003, when Natalie Maines said at a London concert that she was “ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas” and country radio reacted by yanking the Texas band’s tunes off the air in response to irate, post-9/11 listeners.

Grande was, at the time, 9 years old. Probably didn’t get the memo.

Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.

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