Scott Brown quips about Elizabeth Warren’s appearance on Boston radio show

By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff

Republican Senator Scott Brown appeared to belittle Democrat Elizabeth Warren’s physical appearance with a comment he made during a radio interview this morning.

Brown was responding to a crack Warren made in Tuesday’s debate, when the Democrat was asked about Scott Brown using his centerfold spread in Cosmopolitan magazine decades ago to pay for college. Warren said “I didn’t take my clothes off” to pay for school.

Asked by the WZLX disc jockey for a response, Brown said “Thank God,” eliciting laughter from the DJs.

During the interview, Brown, who went to Tufts University and Boston College Law School, then explained more about why he posed nude all those years ago.

“You know what, listen: Bottom line is, you know, I didn’t go to Harvard, you know, I went to the school of hard knocks, and I did whatever I had to do to pay for school,’’ he said.

“And for people who know me, and know what I’ve been through… [My] mom and dad married and divorced four times each. You know, some real challenges growing up,’’ he said.

Brown continued, “You know, whatever. You know, let them throw stones. I did what I had to do. But not for having that opportunity, I never would have been able to pay for school, and never would have gone to school, and I wouldn’t probably be talking to you, so, whatever.’’

Warren, a Harvard Law School professor, graduated from the University of Houston and Rutgers School of Law.

In an e-mail after the radio appearance this morning, Brown’s campaign did not directly respond to a question about why the senator made a joke about Warren’s appearance. Campaign manager Jim Barnett said: “It’s elitist of Professor Warren to look down at the decisions Scott Brown made to put himself through college and rise above the circumstances of his life. Scott has fought and scraped for everything he’s got.”

Warren’s spokesman had no immediate reaction, but Democrats pounced on Brown’s remarks.

“Sen. Brown’s comments are the kind of thing you would expect to hear in a frat house, not a race for US Senate,” Clare Kelly, executive director of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, said in a statement. “Scott Brown’s comments send a terrible message that even accomplished women who are held in the highest esteem can be laughingly dismissed based on their looks.”