Snapchat CEO apologizes for sleazy emails from college days

Evan Spiegel -- CEO of the photo messaging app Snapchat -- has apologized for past emails from his college days in which he spoke about women in an offensive way, for instance, calling them "sororisluts."

The emails, full of vulgar, sexually explicit language not printable here, were published by Gawker's Valleywag blog. The controversial emails date from about five years ago, when Spiegel was a member of Stanford's Kappa Sigma fraternity.

In some of his emails, Spiegel talked about trying to get girls drunk so that they would have sex with his friends, and called certain sorority members "frigid."

Spiegel, 23, issued a statement in which he apologized for his actions.

"I'm obviously mortified and embarrassed that my idiotic emails during my fraternity days were made public. I have no excuse. I'm sorry I wrote them at the time and I was a jerk to have written them. They in no way reflect who I am today or my views towards women," the statement said.

Spiegel founded Snapchat in 2011, when he was still at Stanford, and dropped out the following year. The hugely popular service has gained at least 20 million U.S. users who send about 1.2 billion messages per day. Last year Spiegel reportedly turned down a $3 billion takeover offer from Facebook.