Jonah Hill is apologizing after yelling a homophobic slur at a paparazzo over the weekend.
According to TMZ, while walking with a friend in Los Angeles, the "22 Jump Street" actor was hounded by photographers. In the one-minute-long clip, Hill tries to ignore the paparazzi, who began teasing the actor about his clothing.
"I like the shorts though, bro. They are pretty sexy," said the paparazzi.
As he walked away, the 30-year-old actor replied "Suck my d***, you f****t!"
In an interview with Howard Stern on the "The Howard Stern Show" Tuesday, Hill apologized for his reaction.
"This is a heartbreaking situation for me. I'm upset because from the day I was born, and publicly, I've been a gay rights activist," Hill said. "Just to give it some context, not excusing what I said in anyway, this [paparazzo] had been following me around all day, had been saying hurtful things about my family, really hurtful things about me personally, and I played into exactly what he wanted and I lost my cool. I used a word that I don't use in my personal life. It's not part of my vernacular. I'm happy to take the heat for using this disgusting word. What I won't allow... it would break my heart to think that anyone would think, especially with all the work that I've done and all the loved ones I have, that I would be against anyone for their sexuality."
Hill called the word he used "disgusting" and "hurtful term." The actor mentioned that it does not reflect how he feels "about any group of people. In his statement, the "Wolf of Wall Street" actor said that he grew up with gay members in his family.
"I'm not at all defending my choice of words but I am happy to be the poster boy for thinking about what you say and how those words, even if you don't intend them and how they mean, they are rooted in hate, and that's bulls**t and I shouldn't have said that," Hill said.
Hill then joked that he was good at acting but bad at being a famous person. Last November, Hill tweeted a picture of himself wearing t-shirt that read "Love conquers hate" in Russian. The shirt was meant to protest the nation's treatment of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual community.
