Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Roger Ebert’s Tweet Sparks Outrage




After Ryan Dunn, a star on MTV's "Jackass" stunt show, died in a car crash Monday, film critic Roger Ebert tweeted, "Friends don't let jackasses drink and drive." Ebert was referring to the fact that Dunn had tweeted a photo of himself drinking with friends before getting into his car (the picture is no longer on Twitter, but can be seen on TMZ). Dunn reportedly had three beers and three shots before getting behind the wheel. Many are outraged about Ebert's Twitter comment, including some of his nearly 500,000 Twitter followers, fans of Dunn, and a handful of celebrities like blogger Perez Hilton. On his blog, Hilton wrote, "We certainly agree that driving after drinking is wrong, we think there's no reason-- especially RIGHT NOW-- that anyone should be pointing fingers or poking fun at a truly tragic situation. Everyone makes mistake, and this is somebody's son. Too soon, Roger." Despite calls for an apology, Ebert has yet to do so. Ebert pointed out that most of the comments on Hilton's blog sided with Ebert's view. But the controversy isn't just on Twitter and in blogs. Tuesday morning, the film critic said that his Facebook page was removed by Facebook because of complaints. He tweeted, "Facebook! My page is harmless and an asset to you. Why did you remove it in response to anonymous jerks? Makes you look bad." His page is back up.

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