QUOTED: Rob Ford finally speaks up about whether he smokes crack cocaine

—Embattled mayor and meme-maker’s best friend Rob Ford on the Toronto Star and Gawker’s allegations that he was caught on video smoking crack cocaine. After stonewalling the media for a week—on legal advice, according to Ford—the mayor finally caved to pressure from the public, his executive committee and the deputy mayor and held a short press conference this afternoon. He read a prepared statement in which he vigourously denied that he uses crack, once again accused the Star of having a vendetta against him and thanked, variously, his brother, his recently fired chief of staff Mark Towhey, Doug Holyday and the people of Toronto for their support. (He also didn’t take questions from media). In conclusion: they tried to send Ford to rehab and he said, no, no, no.

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