Yes it's true, the mayor has a potty mouth.

As every journo in the city reported earlier this week, Mayor Gregor Robertson dropped the f-bomb a couple of times at a July 8 council meeting.

He apologized for it.

In a scrum with reporters Monday, he admitted the words that come out of his mouth from time to time aren't always of the squeaky clean kind. "They should hear me on a rugby field or at the hockey rink," he said, when asked what the public should make of the mayor's use of the f-bomb.

So I guess we can only assume what he effing said when he scored the overtime winner in the Hockey for the Homeless game in February 2009. Or what he effing said on the rugby fields of New Zealand when he was in his 20s or the language he uses when watching his son's rugby games.

Oh our virgin ears, said the city's children.

One reporter in the scrum Monday asked Robertson if his choice of words was more a reflection of him, and wondered if he had a bit of a potty mouth.

"Yeah, actually I do in certain circumstances," the mayor said. "But I'm pretty good at managing that, particularly when there are political issues to handle. It's important to be respectful and that's why these were totally inappropriate comments. But I have been known to swear at times, for sure, under different circumstances."

Robertson isn't the first mayor to drop the f-bomb on a recording. When Larry Campbell was mayor between 2002 and 2005, he was caught on mic during a meeting saying, "How do you spell f**cking losers? Bus riders union!"

Campbell was also known to flip the bird the odd time and tell a colourful joke or two. His successor, Sam Sullivan, was never caught in a microphone gaffe but had to explain his verbal attack on Vision mayoral candidate Jim Green in 2005.

In the documentary Citizen Sam, Sullivan referred to Green as a "bully" and "desperate beast." Near the end of the campaign, Sullivan was shown saying, "I'm going to keep my foot on his goddamn throat and I'm going to just keep pressing."

In Toronto, Mayor David Miller was caught on tape making an unflattering comment about corruption in the city's police force.

Miller was talking to Robert Finch, the Lord Mayor of London, when he said, "Is your police force in jail? Mine is." A television cameraman recorded the comment, which forced Miller to apologize. At the time, then Toronto police chief Julian Fantino reportedly said the remark made him feel like "someone has driven a stake through my heart."

The latest microphone gaffe to go viral was that of former British PM Gordon Brown, who unknowingly had a live mic on when he jumped into a car after an encounter with a woman whom he described as a bigot. Brown also apologized.

A couple of years ago, while taping an interview for Fox News, Rev. Jesse Jackson whispered to a fellow guest that he wants to "cut the nuts off" of then-senator Barack Obama for "talking down to black people."

Also south of the border, former president Ronald Reagan committed what is arguably the most infamous microphone gaffe. At the height of the Cold War in 1984, Reagan said in a sound check before a radio interview, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

But not f-bombing. That would be the effing mayor's territory.

mhowell@vancourier.com