Cue the sobs from young girls — and, for that matter, from the cougars too.
“Two and a Half Men” star Ashton Kutcher announced a self-imposed Twitter ban Thursday following his last night tweet decrying the firing of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno.
In a message to fans on his blog, Kutcher explained that he will be handing the management of his Twitter account over to “management.”
“Up until today I have posted virtually every one of my tweets on my own,” he wrote, “but clearly the platform has become to [sic] big to be managed by a single individual … It seems that today that twitter has grown into a mass publishing platform, where ones [sic] tweets quickly become news that is broadcasted [sic] around the world and misinformation becomes volatile fodder for critics.”
Kutch came under fire Wednesday night for Tweeting his anger at the firing of Paterno over the child sex abuse scandal.
“How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste,” he tweeted under his handle @Aplusk.
A short time later, TMZ reported, he deleted the tweet explaining that he had not heard the full story.
“This is an insane story, I just heard paterno was fired, getting the rest of the story now… Wow,” he wrote, going on to add “As an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more remorseful for all involved in the Penn St. case.”
He explained that his initial reaction was due to his long history as a football fan.
“As a football fan and someone who had watched Joe’s career move from that of legend/innovator to a head coach that fulfilled his duty in the booth, I assumed that the university had let him go due to football related issues,” he wrote. “With that assumption (how dare I assume) I posted a tweet defending his career. I then when [sic] about my evening, had some dinner, did a little work, and about an hour later turned on ESPN where I got the full story.”
With 8 million followers Kutcher wrote that he owes them better and more informed opinions. He said will be turning is twitter account over to “his team” at Katalyst Media.
“My sincere apologies to anyone who I have offended,” he concluded. “It was a mistake that I don’t think will happen again.”