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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — U.S. Ambassador Scott Brown said Wednesday that he accepted advice that he should be more culturally aware after a State Department inquiry into his conduct at a Peace Corps event.

New Zealand's Stuff website reported the former U.S. senator from Massachusetts acknowledged that complaints were made about his comments to a female food server and to arriving guests at the July event in the Pacific country of Samoa.

Stuff reported Brown told the server she could make hundreds of dollars as a waitress in the U.S. and told some guests they looked beautiful.

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Former U.S. Senator Scott Brown speaks to supporters after winning the primary allowing him to run for the Republicans in New Hampshire on Sept. 9, 2014. He later lost the election to Democratic rival Jeanne Shaheen. BRIAN SNYDER / Reuters, file

Brown has been ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa since June. He was one of the first ambassadors tapped by President Donald Trump.

Brown attended the event with his wife and said he’d been complimenting the well-dressed guests as they walked in. He said the complaints had come as a surprise but he accepted the advice from the inquiry.

“I was told that, ‘You know, listen, you’re not Scott Brown from Rye, New Hampshire, anymore, you’re an ambassador and you have to be culturally aware of different cultures, and different sensitivities.’ And I’m always welcoming that kind of advice,” Brown told Stuff.

He said there had been some cultural misunderstandings, but also that many people at the event didn’t like Trump and he suspected there might be some political motivation behind the complaints.

1 NEWS' @avancenz confronts US Ambassador Scott Brown over complaints about his 'obnoxious' behaviour in Samoa https://t.co/S1CQD5XSHq pic.twitter.com/4XASFuoheE — 1 NEWS (@1NewsNZ) October 25, 2017

“Sadly, it’s politics, and it is what is,” he told Stuff.

He said rumors about the incident had prompted him to speak out.

The U.S. Embassy in New Zealand said Brown would not comment beyond the interview he gave to the news website.