Jennifer Lawrence has long endeared herself to the public by being cool and down-to-earth, what with her fry eating and face planting and all manner of quirky hijinks.
However, a recent “butt scratching” story she told on the BBC’s “The Graham Norton Show” seemed to cross the line for a lot of her fans.
Lawrence was on the notoriously bawdy talk show with her “Passengers” co-star Chris Pratt, when she recalled an itchy incident she had while filming the second “Hunger Games” movie.
“We were filming in Hawaii and there were sacred rocks, and you’re not supposed to sit on them,” she said. “I was in a wetsuit that whole shoot and oh my God, they were so good for butt itching!”
Fighting back laughter, she continued: “One rock that I was butt scratching on ended up going loose. It was a giant boulder, and it rolled down the mountain and almost killed the sound guy. All the Hawaiians were like, ‘Oh my God, it’s the curse!’ And I’m in the corner like, ‘I’m your curse. I wedged it loose with my ass.’ “
The typically Lawrencian yarn rang hollow online, with critics pointing out it seemed, well, pretty culturally insensitive.
“That time Jennifer Lawrence bragged about defiling sacred Hawaiian stones,” someone wrote.
“She really thought this was funny… ,” said someone else, who also called her “white and evil.”
Lawrence told the same story on “Live With Kelly and Michael” in 2013, and she said she didn’t know at the time that the rocks were sacred. However, for many people, that wasn’t the point.
“The thing about what JLaw was saying is, she’s kind of implying why the rocks were sacred was some silly/dumb ‘savage’ thing,” one person tweeted.
Twitter critics called on the actress to apologize for her comments, and she eventually answered.
“I meant absolutely no disrespect to the Hawaiian people,” a post reads on her public Facebook page. “I really thought that I was being self deprecating about the fact that I was ‘the curse,’ but I understand the way it was perceived was not funny and I apologize if I offended anyone.”
