The former boyfriend of Sarah Palin’s daughter has admitted telling lies about the Republican vice presidential candidate and her family.
Levi Johnston (20), said in an interview that since his untrue statements were made in public “I owe it to the Palins to publicly apologise”.
It was unclear which statements he was referring to and Mr Johnston could not immediately be reached for comment.
Mr Johnston told People magazine in an interview published online yesterday he was "a little angry" after breaking up with his former fiancée, 19-year-old Bristol Palin, after their son's birth in December 2008.
He said that against his better judgment, he said things about the Palins that “were not completely true”.
Mr Johnston says he has also apologised privately to the former Alaska governor Ms Palin and her husband Todd.
Sarah Palin’s lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, said she was unreachable for comment because she was in Bristol Bay involved in her family’s commercial fishing business.
Mr Johnston started going out with Palin’s daughter Bristol in 2005. He was a frequent visitor to the Palin home in Wasilla, Alaska, and lived with the family from November 2008 until he split up with Bristol in January last year.
He made comments about the Palins in an interview published in the October 2009 edition of Vanity Fair magazine.
In that interview, he said that when he learned Republican presidential candidate John McCain had chosen Ms Palin as his running mate, "I thought, 'Was this woman – who at home, would literally say things that did not make sense – really running for vice-president?"
During the campaign, Mr Johnston said, "Cindy McCain [John's wife] told Sarah that if they won, the family wanted me and Bristol to get married at the White House. Sarah was really excited, and Bristol, of course, loved it . . . After it was all over and they lost, the Palins weren't pushing the wedding any more."
The former future son-in-law disputed Ms Palin's campaign claims to be a devoted wife and mother. She and her husband Todd fought often, slept in separate rooms and talked of divorce, he claimed.
Ms Palin subsequently said Mr Johnston's remarks were "malicious".
Additional reporting: AP