TORONTO — Actor Jason Biggs and comedian Bill Maher both came under fire Thursday for comments made on Twitter.
Biggs apologized late Thursday for a light-hearted tweet shortly after a Malaysian aircraft was shot down over Ukraine.
“People were offended, and that was not my intent,” he wrote. “Sorry to those of you that were.”
Biggs, the American Pie star currently starring in Orange is the New Black, had tweeted to his 452,000 followers: “Anyone wanna buy my Malaysian Airlines frequent flier miles?”
He later added: “It’s saddest for the victims and their families, obviously. But Malaysia Airlines is apparently a GREAT airline. Gonna be tough to recover.”
Biggs deleted the tweets after sparking a firestorm.
In his apology, Biggs acknowledged the incident is “a horrible tragedy.”
He tweeted: “I simply understand that my comments might have come off as insensitive and ill-timed. For that, I apologize.”
Maher, host of Real Time, angered many of his nearly 2.7 million followers when he tweeted Thursday: “Dealing w/ Hamas is like dealing w/ a crazy woman who’s trying to kill u – u can only hold her wrists so long before you have to slap her.”
In the Washington Post, Alexandra Petri attacked Maher’s attempt at humour.
“Violence against women, as a hilarious joke premise, went out of style somewhere between the passenger pigeon and the Pole joke,” she wrote, calling his analogy “weird, sexist, unfunny.”
On social media, reaction to Maher’s comment was immediate — and almost entirely negative.
“I hear you,” tweeted comedian Frankie Boyle. “Women do go crazy when you blow up their kids, huh?”
As of Friday morning, Maher has not commented on his tweet or the reaction. He is likely to address it on his show Friday night.
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