People: He understands reich and wrong
A Jewish group says it accepts Will Smith‘s explanation that he never praised Adolf Hitler.
“We welcome and accept Will Smith’s statement that Hitler was a ‘vicious killer’ and that he did not mean for his remarks about the Nazi leader to be mistaken as praise,” Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said Wednesday.
The Daily Record, a Scottish newspaper, on Saturday quoted Smith as saying:
“Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.’ I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good.’ “
That led several celebrity gossip Web sites to posted articles alleging that the actor believed Hitler was a good person, which Smith called “an awful and disgusting lie.”
Foxman said words “can be twisted by those with hate and bigotry in their hearts.
“This is why all celebrities bear a special responsibility to weigh their words carefully, and an obligation to speak out against racism and bigotry whenever even a whiff of it appears,” he said.
They’re after his hide
An arrest warrant was issued for rapper Yung Joc after he failed to show up at his arraignment Wednesday on a felony charge of carrying a concealed weapon.
The 27-year-old performer, whose real name is Jasiel Robinson, was arrested Sunday after attempting to take a loaded gun onto a Delta Air Lines flight from Cleveland. He told police he didn’t know the weapon was there.
His lawyer said he had personal financial and family obligations that caused him to miss Wednesday’s hearing.
A costly breakdown
Country star Toby Keith, his mother and his siblings have been awarded $2.8 million from the 2001 collision that killed his father.
H.K. Covel was killed when his truck crossed the center median and collided with a charter bus. Evidence showed the bus was “in urgent need” of brake repairs, and his family argued Covel would have survived had it been able to stop in time.
The family initially suspected Covel suffered a medical condition that caused him to veer out of control, but later learned that another vehicle had bumped his truck.
No high for Lohan?
Lindsay Lohan says she was sober before a 2005 car crash near Beverly Hills in which her Mercedes-Benz hit a van.
The 21-year-old actress is being sued for negligence over the accident which injured Raymundo Ortega.
He alleges Lohan had been drinking at a restaurant before the crash even though she was underage at the time.
She served 84 minutes in jail last month after pleading guilty to misdemeanor drunken driving and cocaine charges in another case.
The birthday bunch
Guitarist Scotty Moore (Elvis Presley) is 76. News correspondent Cokie Roberts is 64. Actor Gerard Depardieu is 59. Singer Karla Bonoff is 56. Actress Tovah Feldshuh (“Law and Order”) is 55. Actress Eva LaRue (“CSI: Miami”) is 41. Actor Wilson Cruz (“My So-Called Life”) is 34. Actor Masi Oka (“Heroes”) is 33. Actress Emilie de Ravin (“Lost”) is 26.