Hopkins says in the letter that she was "egged on by anger and alcohol" but says the takes full responsibility for her "inexcusable comments."

But rather than get in touch with our publicist -- or the TMZ tipline -- she somehow obtained the email of an African American staffer and emailed it to directly her.

Although she went out of her way to contact the staffer, she ended the email by asking for all further communication to go through her publicist.