Gary Oldman: ‘I Am an A-Hole. I’m 56. I Should Know Better’
Gary Oldman‘s apology tour continued Wednesday night on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where the actor called himself “an a-hole” for a slew of insensitive comments he made during an outlandish interview with Playboy.
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“Once I saw it in print, I saw that it was insensitive, pernicious and ill-informed,” Oldman said in the interview, below. “I am a public figure, I should be an example and inspiration, and I am an a-hole. I am 56. I should know better. I extend my apology and my love and best wishes to my fanbase.”
Oldman continued, “Words have meaning and they carry weight, and they carry on long after you’ve said them. I don’t condone or excuse the words that I used in any context. I just basically shouldn’t have used them, in any context, but I did and I have deeply injured and wounded a great many people.”
The appearance on Kimmel came on the heels of Oldman’s official note to the Anti-Defamation League apologizing for perpetuating stereotypes about Jews in Hollywood. Those comments came in the initial Playboy chat when Oldman was ostensibly defending disgraced actor Mel Gibson. According to a statement from ADL director Abraham Foxman, the organization was not satisfied with Oldman’s note, calling his apology “insufficient and not satisfactory.”
Oldman’s Playboy interview, though, wasn’t just offensive to Jews, with the actor spouting off about the hypocrisy of political correctness. He used the N-word while addressing Gibson’s infamous drunken tirade, empathized with Alec Baldwin, who apparently directed an anti-gay slur at a photographer, and in a hypothetical about how comedians like Bill Maher and Jon Stewart use irony to get away with saying uncouth things, he said, “Well, if I called Nancy Pelosi a cunt — and I’ll go one better, a fucking useless cunt — I can’t really say that.”
During his appearance on Kimmel, Oldman, a self-described libertarian, added, “Sometimes, we are asked to be social and cultural commentators, and I am not. I landed both feet in a hornet’s nest. It came over in a certain way, and for that I am deeply sorry.”