Ending a seven-day silence, Mayor Rob Ford offered his first extended response on Friday to two media reports about a video in which he appears to smoke crack cocaine and utter an anti-gay slur.

“I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine,” Ford said in a speech at city hall.

Ford scheduled the speech amid extraordinary public pressure from council allies. Less than an hour before he spoke, six members of his hand-picked executive committee, including his deputy mayor, released an “open letter to Toronto” urging him to discuss the scandal “definitively” and “openly and transparently.”

Ford refused to take questions from reporters, and his four-minute appearance left much of council unsatisfied. Jaye Robinson, an executive committee member who signed the open letter, said Ford failed to sufficiently address the issue of the video, to her “the crux of this whole controversy.”

“I guess my wish was that there would be a bit more comprehensive response,” Robinson said.

Said Gary Crawford, another signatory to the letter: “I’m pleased that he did come out and speak on the matter. I think that was important. Will the issue die down? No, I don’t think it will. I think this is not over. I think the big question is will this video ever show up? There’s a lot of unknowns at this point.”

The Star could not verify the authenticity of the video, which was in the possession of men involved in the drug trade. Gawker, a U.S. website, announced Thursday that it had lost contact with the men even as it offered to buy the video with more than $167,000 in reader donations.

Ford said: “As for a video, I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen or does not exist. It is most unfortunate, very unfortunate, that my colleagues and the great people of this city have been exposed to the fact that I have been judged by the media without evidence.”

Ford ignored several shouted questions as he left the room. The first was a request to clarify whether he meant that he is not a current crack user or whether he has never been one. The second sought a response to multiple newspaper reports that he had fired chief of staff Mark Towhey on Thursday because Towhey had urged him to get help for a substance abuse problem.

Ford did not mention the photo that appears to show him posing outside a house with a 21-year-old who was murdered in March. He also did not discuss the Star’s report that he appeared to use a homophobic slur to describe Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and that he appeared to refer to high school football players he coached as “just f---ing minorities.”

Some observers noted Ford’s use of the present tense, “I do not,” for his denial of crack use. Council centrist Josh Matlow, who has grown critical of Ford, wrote on Twitter: “Once I’ve completed writing this I will honestly be able to say that I am not writing this.”

Matlow said in an interview: “There are three journalists who have said that they have seen a video where it appears Mayor Ford is smoking crack cocaine and uttering racial and homophobic slurs. The mayor did not respond to what those journalists have seen. I hope the mayor will, but as of yet he has not done so.”

Councillor Peter Milczyn, who signed the letter, said the scandal is “obviously” not over. But he said Ford’s statement was “very direct and robust.”

“The mayor addressed the people of Toronto,” Milczyn said. “He made a statement. For a week, he didn’t address us, he’s addressed us. Whether some people like what he said or they didn’t, whether they accept what he said or they didn’t, he made a statement, very direct.”

In brief remarks last Friday, Ford called the reports “absolutely not true” and “ridiculous.” He accused the Star, a publication he regularly criticizes, of “going after” him. He again mentioned the Star in his speech. He did not reference Gawker’s independent report.

Ford devoted four sentences of the speech to his Wednesday dismissal as a volunteer high school football coach at Etobicoke’s Don Bosco Catholic Secondary. He also thanked Towhey for his work.

Multiple media outlets reported that Towhey’s firing was prompted by Towhey urging Ford to enter a rehabilitation program. One source told the Star the same thing on Friday. Other accounts have also emerged. Two other sources told the Star that while Towhey had indeed been advising Ford to seek medical assistance, the firing was closely related to Ford’s ouster as coach.

The sources told the Star that Ford was so emotional after losing his beloved post at Don Bosco that he ordered Towhey to go to the school and retrieve thousands of dollars worth of football equipment he had donated. When Towhey told Ford that this was a bad idea, the sources said, Ford fired him.

The sources said Towhey implored other aides not to answer any phone calls from Ford that night because the mayor was so upset. Accustomed to Ford’s mercurial behaviour, Towhey, who thought he had experienced a “phantom” firing, then returned to city hall the next day — at which point Ford asked him to help arrange a party next week with Don Bosco players and other friends.

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Towhey, incredulous, calmly explained that the mayor’s office had more urgent business. This so infuriated Ford, the sources said, that he reminded Towhey that he had been fired the night before and had him escorted from the building by security.

Towhey did not respond to requests for comment.

Premier Kathleen Wynne said she is closely watching the “tumultuous situation” involving Ford but had no plans to intervene. She said the issue is “a personal situation at this point,” and she said city councillors are “stepping up to their responsibility.”

The letter from the six members of the executive began, “As members of Toronto’s Executive Committee, we would like to assure all Torontonians that the City’s business continues without interruption.”