Jamie Foxx apologises for cryptic post about “Jesus” and “fake friends”

Jamie Foxx has apologised for publishing a post on Instagram about “Jesus” and “fake friends”.

On Friday, the actor and singer wrote on Instagram: “They killed this dude name[d] Jesus…What do you think they’ll do to you???!” He added the hashtags #fakefriends and #fakelove.

Many reasonably interpreted “they” as a reference to Jews, concluding that the post drew on the antisemitic trope of deicide, whereby the Jews are accused of having betrayed and killed Jesus.

However, Mr Foxx removed the post and issued an apology on Saturday, insisting that “they” was a reference to a specific “fake friend” whom he felt had betrayed him. This reading would suggest that in his original post Mr Foxx was likening himself to Jesus.

His apology read: “I want to apologise to the Jewish community and everyone who was offended by my post. I now know my choice of words have caused offence 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. I love and support the Jewish community. My deepest apologies to anyone who was offended.”

The actress Jennifor Aniston also apologised for liking Mr Foxx’s original post, writing on Instagram: “This really makes me sick. 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. And I truly don’t tolerate HATE of any kind. PERIOD.”