Los Angeles, Aug 6 – Actor Jamie Foxx has apologised after he was slammed for sharing what many considered to be an antisemitic message on Instagram.
On Friday, the ‘Django Unchained’ actor posted a black square with the words: “they killed this dude named Jesus… What do you think they’ll do to you???!” followed by the hashtags “fake friends” and “fake love.”
Multiple social media users saw the message as antisemitic.
On Saturday, the ‘They Cloned Tyrone’ star apologised for the post to his 16.7 million followers.
“I want to apologise to the Jewish community and everyone who was offended by my post. I now know my choice of words have caused offense and I’m sorry. That was never my intent.”
“To clarify, I was betrayed by a fake friend and that’s what I meant with ‘they’ not anything more. I only have love in my heart for everyone. I love and support the Jewish community. My deepest apologies to anyone who was offended.”
Following his post on #fakefriends and #fakelove, many on social media assumed that the actor’s words had an antisemitic meaning, attributing his use of “they” as a reference to the Jewish people.
Jewish news company A Wider Frame shared a screenshot of Foxx’s Instagram and criticised the “horrifically antisemitic” message, Daily Mail reported.
For centuries, Jews have been blamed for the death of Jesus, and the alleged deicide has been used as an excuse for oppression and violence against them.
Someone named Jennifer Aniston appeared to ‘like’ Foxx’s post.
Aniston, 54, quickly denounced it and denied any connection to it in her Instagram Stories.
“This really makes me sick,” she wrote.
“I did not ‘like’ this post on purpose or by accident,” she maintained. “And more importantly, I want to be clear to my friends and anyone hurt by this showing up in their feeds — I do NOT support any form of antisemitism. And I truly don’t tolerate HATE of any kind. Period.”
Foxx’s pal Adam Weitsman quickly came to his defence writing: “I know you personally, I’m Jewish and know you are the last person that would EVER act Anti Semetic.”
“Your kind and thoughtful to everyone. I would always vouch for you.”