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It seems like Two and a Half Men continues to be television’s number one sitcom… featuring controversial leading man.
Ashton Kutcher came under fire when he sent out an uninformed tweet in response to the firing of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. Kutcher, who has found himself in trouble before for his questionably insensitive tweets, posted, “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste.” (That tweet, pictured below, has since been taken down.)
As he would later admit, Kutcher was unaware of the reasoning behind Paterno’s firing. Paterno, as well as Penn State president Graham B. Spanier, were canned last night, in “the fallout from child rape charges against former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky,” according to CNN. (Sandusky, Penn State’s longtime assistant, was arrested on charges of molesting at least eight boys between 1994 and 2009. In 2002, another assistant said he witnessed Sandusky having sex with a young boy in a shower at the football facility, an incident which he brought to the attention of Paterno. While the football coach reported the allegations to his boss, a response which Pennsylvania’s attorney general said met the obligations of state law, Paterno came under intense scrutiny for not having reported the alleged abuse to the authorities.)
When Kutcher became aware of the full details of the headline-grabbing story, he tweeted followers, “This is an insane story, I just heard paterno was fired, getting the rest of the story now…” and later posted “Fully recant previous tweet! … Didn’t have full story. #admitwhenYoumakemistakes.” (Those tweets have also been removed from the actor’s page.)
As a flurry of outraged tweets came in from some of his more than eight million fans, Kutcher, who — along with wife Demi Moore — is a co-founder of the DNA Foundation, an organization established to “end child sex slavery,” continued to apologize for his initial error. “As an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more remorseful for all involved in the Penn St. case,” he wrote in a tweet which has remained on his page.
But that still wasn’t enough to sooth upset followers, who called the star an “idiot” and “ignorant.” Kutcher’s last tweet about the fallout read, “As of immediately I will stop tweeting until I find a way to properly manage this feed. I feel awful about this error. Won’t happen again.”
Read more:
Ashton Kutcher’s strange recent tweets: What does it all mean?
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