Ashton Kutcher Called Idiot, Ignorant After Tweeting Joe Paternos Firing Was in Po
Ashton Kutcher has found himself having to apologize for another controversial tweet.
Two months after his 9/11 gaffe — when the Two and a Half Men star tweeted that it was the “greatest day of the year” because of the start of football season — he sent out a message about Penn State football coach Joe Paterno’s firing.
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The 84-year-old Paterno, who has had a successful 46-year coaching career, was fired Wednesday amid a child-abuse sex scandal along with President Graham Spanier. The move came in the wake of former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky being charged last weekend with 40 counts of sexual abuse of children. Paterno has been criticized for failing to contact authorities when he was told about possible misconduct by Sandusky nine years ago.
“How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste,” Kutcher tweeted Wednesday night to his 8.3 million Twitter followers.
The message instantly set off a barrage of responses from people admonishing him and calling him names including “idiot” and “ignorant.”
“Today’s lesson? @aplusk Think (get facts) before you tweet! #yikes,” wrote Laurie Good.
Added Nate Miller: “F— you. He covered up child rape you sick, geriatric f—.”
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And Tommie Sunshine wrote: “With 8 million followers, you MAY want to reserve your opinions until you know the whole story.”
But it seems Kutcher — who runs the Demi & Ashton Foundation with wife Demi Moore, which works to fight child sex slavery — wasn’t aware of the facts.
Kutcher took down the original tweet about 30 minutes later and then tweeted: “Heard Joe was fired, fully recant previous tweet! Didn’t have full story. #admitwhenYoumakemistakes”
That was followed by two more mea culpas: “This is an insane story, I just heard paterno was fired, getting the rest of the story now… Wow” and “As an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more remorseful for all involved in the Penn St. case.”
Meanwhile, several of the insulting messages were retweeted by Kutcher, who seemingly went out of his way to say he’d make a mistake by adding comments including “true that” and “agreed.”
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To the people who called him an idiot, Kutcher wrote, “I am” and “Honestly just had half facts man my bad” and “U r right, I need 2b more responsible 4 my voice.”
And he replied “ignorant indeed” to the tweeter who called him just that.
The mea culpa comes just two months after his Sept. 11 tweet got him in hot water.
“This without a doubt the greatest day of the year!” he wrote at the time. “Hello football my old friend. Let’s us mingle for the next 5 months. TY #NFL TY #Jesus.”
But he quickly backpedaled, adding: “I got mad respect for the people that suffered in 9/11. Pls don’t twist my enthusiasm. / Hindsight…Yeah, that was probably a poorly worded tweet.”
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And in July, he engaged in a war of words with the Village Voice after the paper ran a story critical of his and Moore’s anti-sex-slavery efforts. He then tweeted the publication’s advertisers suggesting they end their relationship with the paper.
“Hey @disney @dominos, are you aware that you are advertising on a site that owns and operates a digital brothel?” he wrote.
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