Jesse Hughes of the rock band Eagles of Death Metal apologized Sunday for the “mean-spirited” comments he made following the March For Our Lives.
“Recently I made some posts on my Instagram that did not communicate how I feel about a variety of topics,” the 45-year-old singer said in his Instagram post. “What I’d intended to be a statement about the hijacking by any side of the aisle of the beautiful agenda of a movement of our nation’s youth came off seeming like a mean-spirited, personal attack and slight of the youth themselves and even a personal attack of its leadership.”
“I was not attempting to impugn the youth of America and this beautiful thing they have accomplished,” he added. “I truly am sorry. I did not mean to hurt anyone or cause any harm. As someone who’s watched their friends shot in front of their eyes and seen people killed that they love, I should have handled this a lot more maturely and responsibly, and I did not do that and I messed up. And I hope that you’re able to forgive, me but please know that I did not mean to do what it seems like it was I was doing.”
Hughes, a survivor of the Paris Bataclan terrorist attack in 2015, said attendees of the march were an “insult” to the “memory of those who were killed.” The post has since been deleted.
“As the survivor of a mass shooting I can tell you from first-hand experience that all of you protesting and taking days off from school insult the memory of those who were killed and abuse and insult me and every other lover of liberty by your every action,” Hughes wrote.
The march was started in response to the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that left 17 people dead.