Lorde apologizes for Whitney Houston bathtub joke

Lorde has offered an apology after she was roasted for joking about Whitney Houston and a bathtub. The 21-year-old singer …

Lorde attends the MusiCares Person of the Year tribute to Fleetwood Mac in January in New York.

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) -- Lorde has offered an apology after she was roasted for joking about Whitney Houston and a bathtub.

The 21-year-old singer posted a now-deleted Instagram photo of a tub being filled with running water and captioned it, "And iiii will always love you," a lyric from Houston's 1992 recording of the Dolly Parton song "I Will Always Love You."

Houston accidentally drowned in a bathtub in a suite at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, in February 2012.

Some fans were incensed by the posting and took to social media to vent.

Others defended Lorde and insisted the singer didn't mean to make a joke of Houston's death.

The New Zealand native posted a note on her Instagram Stories to apologize.

"Extremely extremely poorly chosen quote. I'm so sorry for offending anyone," she wrote. "I hadn't even put this together I was just excited to take a bath."

"I'm an idiot," Lorde added. "Love Whitney forever and ever. Sorry again."

She even responded in the comments on the Instagram page of gossip site The Shade Room.

"I was meaning no disrespect and hadn't put anything together because I'm dumb and it's my day off," Lorde wrote. "SORRY."