Jennifer Aniston is facing backlash over her latest comments about “cancel culture.”
Sitting down with the Wall Street Journal this week for a wide-ranging interview, Jennifer, 54, casually noted that she’s “so over cancel culture” — something that she’s spoken out about multiple times.
“I’m so over cancel culture,” she told WSJ. “I probably just got canceled by saying that. I just don’t understand what it means... Is there no redemption? I don’t know. I don’t put everybody in the Harvey Weinstein basket.”
Speaking further of Harvey Weinstein, who was convicted of rape and sexual assault in 2020, Jennifer said: “He’s not a guy, you’re like, ‘God, I can’t wait to hang out with Harvey.’ Never. You were actually like, ‘Oh, God, OK, suck it up.’ I remember actually, he came to visit me on a movie to pitch me a movie. And I do remember consciously having a person stay in my trailer.”
Reacting to her comments on Twitter, several users quickly took issue with the fact that Jen so casually denounced the notion of "cancel culture" by arguing that she doesn’t "put everyone in the Harvey Weinstein basket," seemingly insinuating that canceling someone is comparable to Harvey being held accountable for the crimes he committed.
"i don’t like the implication that harvey weinstein was 'cancelled'???" one person wrote.
“Harvey Weinstein wasn’t canceled he committed disgusting crimes therefore was held accountable for it that’s not the same thing as canceling someone,” said another.
What's more, several social media users slammed Jennifer’s overt critique of cancel culture in light of her recent controversy with Jamie Foxx.
For those who missed it, Jen publicly issued a statement against Jamie earlier this month after reports claimed she’d “liked” one of his Instagram posts that had been interpreted by some internet users as antisemitic.
Jamie’s post read, “They killed this dude name Jesus...what do you think they'll do to you???! #fakefriends #fakelove.” While several users understood Jamie’s message as a reference to disloyal people, which is commonly used in the Black community specifically, some felt it was perpetuating the antisemitic belief that Jewish people “bear the eternal responsibility for the death of Jesus Christ.”
Before Jamie had a chance to explain himself, Jennifer publicly denounced his message and fueled the narrative that he’d purposefully been antisemitic. “This really makes me sick,” she wrote on her Instagram story. “I did not ‘like’ this post on purpose or by accident.”
“And more importantly, I want to be clear to my friends and anyone hurt by this showing up in their feeds — I do NOT support any form of antisemitism,” she added. “I truly don’t tolerate HATE of any kind. Period.”
Jen’s statement quickly resulted in a flurry of hate toward Jamie — despite the fact that, as he later explained, he wasn’t explicitly perpetuating any kind of hate speech in his message.
“I want to apologize to the Jewish community and everyone who was offended by my post,” he wrote on Instagram. “I now know my choice of words have caused offense and I'm sorry. That was never my intent. To clarify, I was betrayed by a fake friend, and that's what I meant with ‘they,’ not anything more.”
“I only have love in my heart for everyone,” Jamie went on. “I love and support the Jewish community. My deepest apologies to anyone who was offended.”
Several fans and celebrities expressed their support for Jamie following his statement, arguing that if nothing else, the hashtags explicitly referencing “fake friends” in his post made his point more than clear.
As a result, many people began to call Jennifer out for being so quick to throw Jamie “under the bus” and publicly fuel the narrative that he was being antisemitic without “actually bothering to read what he wrote.”
“You were clearly talking about someone you thought was a friend who turned out to be a backstabber. The hashtags clearly reference that,” wrote media personality Porscha Coleman under Jamie’s Instagram post.
“Her mistake was throwing Jamie under the bus while calling the post antisemitic when it wasn’t. Bc Jamie was talking about being betrayed by friends, just like Judas betrayed Jesus,” one person wrote on twitter.
“In MY opinion i think jennifer aniston owes jamie foxx an apology. an allegation like that is extremely bonkers especially since she misunderstood what he was saying to begin with. why was she so quick to try to throw him under the bus when people saw her like??” someone else echoed.
So, in light of how quick Jen was to denounce Jamie — and her lack of public apology for the misunderstanding since — many fans have taken issue with her latest comments about “cancel culture,” arguing that she seemed fine with Jamie being canceled, but appeared to shift as soon as she was “held accountable” for wrongfully fueling the hate toward him.
“Very interesting for Jennifer Aniston to say this considering she was 100% behind cancel culture when it came to Jamie Foxx,” one person wrote.
“Oh, now Jennifer Aniston is over cancel culture. But just last week, she was trying to cancel Jamie for no reason because she couldn't read between the lines,” another user echoed. “Does she know it’s okay to just apologize for being loud and wrong about Jamie Foxx or she could just...idk, be quiet?” someone else wrote.
Furthermore, Jennifer said herself that she doesn’t “understand” what cancel culture “means,” prompting more people to question why she was “crying” over it in the first place.
