E! Apologizes to Michael J. Fox For ‘Fun Fact’ About Parkinson’s!
Published on January 16, 2014. Updated October 15, 2014E! has apologized to Michael J. Fox for an insensitive remark in their red carpet Golden Globes coverage.
As the 52 year-old actor entered the awards show in Beverly Hills on Sunday, the network flashed a “fun fact” graphic about his Parkinson’s disease in their online stream (it did not appear on television). Take a look at the video to see the details of what was aired.
Viewers immediately took to Twitter to post a screen-shot of the incident and express outrage that this information was tastelessly categorized as a “fun fact.” For their part, the network quickly responded to apologize.
“We regret the insensitive classification of Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s diagnosis during our E Online Live Stream,” the network said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “We understand the serious nature of the disease and seriously apologize.”
But that wasn’t the only disease treated as a “fun fact” by E! — one Twitter user pointed out another graphic that insensitively used another leading man’s serious childhood disease as trivia factoid (see the video for more about that).
Michael J. Fox was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Television Comedy Series for his new NBC sitcom, The Michael J. Fox Show, but lost out Andy Samberg of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.