Shrek and Pirates of the Caribbean screenwriter Terry Rossio was slammed on Saturday after comparing the term “anti-vax” to the N-word.
Responding to a request for vaccine donations from The 100 writer Julie Benson, Rossio went on his own anti-vaccination rant and strongly objected to the term “Anti-Vax.”
“My heart goes out to all the parents of vaccine damaged children, who have to not only endure the sadness of their loss, but also the vitriol of ill-informed and insensitive people (such as those here),” Terry Rossio wrote in a now-deleted tweet. “Anti-Vax is equivalent to calling someone a n—– and makes as little sense.”
“Terry, I have a lot of respect for you and your career but twice now you’ve come on my Twitter to insult me,” Benson responded. “What gives? Or am I reading this incorrectly?”
Rossio, whose major works also include Aladdin, later apologized for his remarks, declaring he stands against ” hate speech and dehumanizing labels in any form.”
“You can’t make a point against hate speech and reference actual words of hate speech,” he wrote. “That was insensitive and ignorant. I am immediately deleting the post to remove that toxic word from the internet, where it should never appear in any context.”
Of course, this is not the first time that Hollywood figures have come under fire for their inappropriate use of the N-word. Earlier this year, Netflix’s long-time communications chief Jonathan Friedland was fired for using the N-word twice in front of company employees. Meanwhile, actress Bette Midler was forced to apologize after describing women as the “N-word of the world.”
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