After Paterno Tweet, Ashton Kutcher Admits Ignorance

Ashton Kutcher is a twit-wit. After tweeting an opinion on a matter he knew nothing about, (in this case, the Joe Paterno and the alleged child-sex assault scandal) he’s apologizing for being stupid and handing over his twitter account to his production company.

Seems Kutcher had only known that Penn State coach Joe Paterno was fired, and didn’t realize what for, so he mistakenly assumed (we all know that assumptions can get you into trouble) that he was fired for being old and not getting enough wins for the team. (Neither are true. Penn State is 8-1 right now, and nearly everyone knows that Paterno was forced out over the child sexual assault scandal involving a former assistant.)

And yet – tweet he did: “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste”

The tweet was not well received.

After Kutcher’s tweet supporting Paterno, twitter users barraged him with an assault of criticism. Kutcher deleted the original tweet, then tweeted an apology admitting that he didn’t know why Paterno was actually fired, calling himself an “idiot.” He then wrote on his website that he is turning over his tweets to Katalyst Media, the production company that he co-founded. 

Among Kutcher’s statements from his website:

“Last night after returning home from work I walked by the television and simply saw a headline that Joe Paterno had been fired… Having no more information than that, I assumed that he had been fired due to poor performance as an aging coach… With that assumption (how dare I assume) I posted a tweet defending his career…As of immediately I will stop tweeting until I find a way to properly manage this feed. I feel awful about this error. Won’t happen again.”

He then posted a photo of himself next to a sign that read: “I’m with stupid.”

Kutcher has been a longtime fan and advoctate of twitter, being the first celebrity to reach 1 million followers. That total has now reached 8 million.