Evan Peters Apologizes For Retweeting A Video Condoning Violence Against Looters

American Horror Story star Evan Peters issued an apology on Tuesday for retweeting a video posted by another Twitter user that advocated the use of violence against people looting during the protests against police brutality — sparked by the death of George Floyd — that are going on nationwide, Page Six reported. Earlier in the day, the actor retweeted a clip that showed looters being tackled by police officers, with a caption that joked about how entertaining it is to watch such scenes.

Twitter users immediately fired back at Peters, calling him out for not speaking up about the protests before this tweet and for supporting violence against looters, The Wrap reported. While many celebrities have taken to social media to talk about the protests and the Black Lives Matter movement, Peters has not been vocal about either topic. His retweet of the footage seemed to be him breaking his silence, and not in a good way.

However, just hours later, Peters deleted the tweet with the video and posted a picture of a black square to show his solidarity with #BlackOutTuesday, according to Page Six. #BlackOutTuesday is an online initiative to raise up black voices and share anti-racism resources. Many celebrities showed their solidarity for the movement for on Tuesday.

Minutes after posting the #BlackOutTuesday tweet, Peters shared an apology for retweeting the video, saying he’d done so by mistake.

“I don’t condone the guy watching the news at all in the video which I have deleted,” he tweeted. “I unknowingly retweeted it. I’m deeply upset it got on my newsfeed. I sincerely apologize if anyone was offended. I support black lives matter wholeheartedly.”

Unfortunately, many people didn’t find his comments very sincere. Many Twitter users commented on the apology, pointing out that retweeting takes multiple clicks because the user has to choose whether they simply want to retweet or do so with a comment. These people argued that it would be very hard to accidentally retweet something. Other users replied to his apology by linking places where people could actually donate to Black Lives Matters and other anti-racist organizations, asking Peters to retweet those posts instead.

Other social media users called out Peters for posting the #BlackOutTuesday tweet, implying that he was only doing it to get himself out of the hole he’d dug by retweeting the clip, Page Six reported.

One Twitter user called out Peters’ “performative activism.” Another said that his post was useless without action to follow it up.

“Evan, If you support #BlackLivesMatter wholeheartedly please share resources and information to your followers, the black box does nothing to help us. If you need links to share we have plenty.”

Peters has stayed silent about the controversy since issuing the apology on Twitter.