Burt Reynolds unsympathetic toward Charlie Sheen
Burt Reynolds had some harsh words for Charlie Sheen during the week of Dec. 6.
During an appearance on ITV’s “Loose Women” on Dec. 8, Reynolds said Sheen “deserved” HIV after years and years of “misbehaving,” adding that he had zero sympathy for the actor.
“His father [Martin Sheen] is a very, very decent man and a dear friend of mine,” Reynolds said. “I feel bad for him. For Charlie, I don’t feel bad for him. He’s getting what he deserves. … He misbehaved badly. Very badly.”
Reynolds went on to say he believed Sheen did a poor job at announcing he was living with the virus, implying that perhaps he should have kept his HIV status silent instead.
Last month, anti-vaxxer Jenny McCarthy, who once worked with Sheen on “Two and a Half Men,” publicly shamed him for not telling her about his status before they taped a love scene together.
“You would think there would be some type of, I don’t want to say criminal issue, but I don’t even know how to feel about that,” McCarthy said.
Takei takes on Trump
Speaking to [Donald] Trump’s latest stirring of the national discourse pot — this time the candidate said “all Muslims” should be banned from entering the United States — George Takei called upon his own experience at an internment camp to draw a parallel.
“It’s ironic that he made that comment on December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, the very event that put us in those internment camps,” Takei stated.
“In the 1980’s Congress organized a commission to look into the reasons why that internment happened,” he said. “They found that it was three things that brought that about. One was racial hysteria, second was war hysteria, and third was failure of political leadership.”
“Donald Trump is the perfect example of that failure,” Takei added.
Screenwriter hurt over reaction to androgynous character
“Zoolander 2” screenwriter and actor Justin Theroux swears he wasn’t trying to cause offense by creating the film’s androgynous character, portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch.
In November, a trailer for the sequel — which stars Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson and will be out in February — resulted in a petition calling for the film to be boycotted.
The trailer features an androgynous character named All, who is asked “Are you a male or female model?” and whether they “have a hot dog or a bun.”
The petition has already garnered over 20,000 signatures.
Speaking to “The Wrap,” Theroux says:
“Our target is not, and never was, to disenfranchise anyone. I don’t even know what to make of it, because it hurts my feelings in a way. I take great care in the jokes I write, and the umbrage being taken is out of the context of the scene. I wish people would see the movie first. Satire is a thing that points out the idiots.”
The petition claims that “Cumberbatch’s character is clearly portrayed as an over-the-top, cartoonish mockery of androgyne/trans/non-binary individuals. This is the modern equivalent of using blackface to represent a minority.”
Pennsylvania woman goes on trial following violent attack
On Dec. 9, the trial began for Kathryn Knott, the young woman accused of participating in a violent attack on a gay couple in Center City Philadelphia in 2014.
Knott, who hails from Bucks County, faces charges of aggravated assault, simple assault, conspiracy and reckless endangerment.
According to Philadelphia police, she and a group of her friends beat the couple at 16th and Chancellor Sts. in September 2014.
Philip Williams and Kevin Harrigan both apologized, admitting their roles in the beating. Earlier tin 2015, they both pleaded guilty to assault and conspiracy charges, agreeing to pay fines and participate in 200 hours of community service at an LGBTQ organization.
Neither received any jail time.
On the other hand, the 25-year-old Knott rejected a plea deal, choosing instead to stand trial.
A judge ruled that a series of homophobic tweets written by Knott can be used as evidence against her.
Boxer’s invitation to British Sports Awards rescinded
Over 125,000 people signed a change.org petition calling for the BBC to remove Tyson Fury from its short list of Sports Personality of the Year 2015 in the British Sports Awards after he compared being gay to pedophilia and said it will lead to the apocalypse.
Now, the 27-year-old heavyweight boxing champ’s invitation to the awards has officially been rescinded, but not for the reasons petitioners had hoped.
According to a statement released by the Sports Journalists’ Association on Dec. 9, Tyson was “reluctantly” disinvited to the British Sports Awards happening later this month “as a consequence of threats made by Fury against at least one sports journalist, an SJA member, who has written about the boxer’s repugnant comments on homosexuality and women.”
That’s right, it’s not the horrible comments he said about gay people that got him in trouble.
It was a flippant remark he made to a reporter that did it.
As for Fury, he hasn’t yet responded to having his invitation rescinded, but he certainly seems to be enjoying all the attention. Earlier during the week of Dec. 6, he tweeted:
“I have the press camped outside my house! Lol me famous.”
— all news stories via LGBTQ Nation (lgbtqnation.com), a qnotes media partner