Gilbert Gottfried, the long-time voice for Columbus, Ga.-based Aflac’s popular mascot Duck, says he is not sorry for his tweets following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan that cost him the job. In an interview with a Connecticut newspaper to advance an April 30 performance at Stamford’s Treehouse Comedy Club, Gottfried said he doesn’t understand the big deal made over the insensitive tweets.
Among tweets that landed Gottfried in hot water: "Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." And: "I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, 'They'll be another one floating by any minute now."
Soon after the tweets were sent, the bosses at Aflac (NYSE: AFL) made the decision to let Gottfried go, and to search for a new voice for the duck. About 70 percent of Aflac’s business is based in Japan, and the supplemental insurer employs more than 5,000 people there. This week, Aflac named a new voice, Dan McKeague, a 36-year-old radio station sales manager from Hugo, Minn. He was selected after a month-long search that included celebrities, actors, professional voiceover artists and the general public. McKeague applied for the job online beating out the other 12,500 who applied.
Gottfried told Connecticut newspaper The Wilton Villager in a phone interview - “I can’t really talk about Aflac all that much because legally I can’t,” but he was more than happy to say what the thinks about reaction to his tweets, according to the article.
"When the media wrote about it or spoke or anything they were always going 'Gilbert Gottfried's comments and remarks' and they would leave out the word jokes, cause when you say joke people just look at it and go 'alright he made jokes, he's a comic, he made jokes.'"
Gottfried continued: "The media picked it up like crazy. I feel like centuries from now, millions of years from now, aliens will land on this planet (and) when they're digging up this time period they're going to say 'oh there's pictures of him and pictures of the tsunami so he must have caused it.’”
Gottfried added: "I love the way the media got so upset and so heartbroken and was so concerned and so self important, until a better story comes along and the better story that wiped Japan completely out of the headlines and out of the main section of the show was when Chris Brown threw a chair backstage on 'Good Morning America.' One day I woke up and I'm watching the news, no mention of Japan, but constant reports of what caused Chris Brown to get so angry on 'Good Morning America.' The news reported that with as much if not more emotion than they were reporting the whole Japan thing."
The often abrasive comic who got his start at open mic nights in New York said he doubts people in Japan have time to worry or care about “an American comic’s bad taste.”
Gottfried told the Connecticut paper he hasn’t stopped tweeting. Said Gottfried: "Now it's like sometimes I think twice about it, but then I go 'you know what -- the hell.'"
Among tweets that landed Gottfried in hot water: "Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." And: "I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, 'They'll be another one floating by any minute now."
Soon after the tweets were sent, the bosses at Aflac (NYSE: AFL) made the decision to let Gottfried go, and to search for a new voice for the duck. About 70 percent of Aflac’s business is based in Japan, and the supplemental insurer employs more than 5,000 people there. This week, Aflac named a new voice, Dan McKeague, a 36-year-old radio station sales manager from Hugo, Minn. He was selected after a month-long search that included celebrities, actors, professional voiceover artists and the general public. McKeague applied for the job online beating out the other 12,500 who applied.
Gottfried told Connecticut newspaper The Wilton Villager in a phone interview - “I can’t really talk about Aflac all that much because legally I can’t,” but he was more than happy to say what the thinks about reaction to his tweets, according to the article.
"When the media wrote about it or spoke or anything they were always going 'Gilbert Gottfried's comments and remarks' and they would leave out the word jokes, cause when you say joke people just look at it and go 'alright he made jokes, he's a comic, he made jokes.'"
Gottfried added: "I love the way the media got so upset and so heartbroken and was so concerned and so self important, until a better story comes along and the better story that wiped Japan completely out of the headlines and out of the main section of the show was when Chris Brown threw a chair backstage on 'Good Morning America.' One day I woke up and I'm watching the news, no mention of Japan, but constant reports of what caused Chris Brown to get so angry on 'Good Morning America.' The news reported that with as much if not more emotion than they were reporting the whole Japan thing."
The often abrasive comic who got his start at open mic nights in New York said he doubts people in Japan have time to worry or care about “an American comic’s bad taste.”
Gottfried told the Connecticut paper he hasn’t stopped tweeting. Said Gottfried: "Now it's like sometimes I think twice about it, but then I go 'you know what -- the hell.'"
