'I'd like to apologize to the Echols family and others for posting a pic of their kids w/o permission. I didn't mean to cause them distress,' so he tweeted on Thursday.
- Jul 3, 2015
AceShowbiz - Jim Carrey's recent anti-vaccine Twitter rants against California government resulted in a serious problem. The 53-year-old actor issued an apology on Thursday, July 2 after a family slammed him for using their autistic son's picture in the rant without permission.
"I'd like to apologize to the Echols family and others for posting a pic of their kids w/o permission. I didn't mean to cause them distress," so Carrey wrote on his account.
On Tuesday, June 30, Carrey launched a series of Twitter rants expressing his disapproval of California's new policy requiring all school children in the state to get vaccinated. One of the tweets included a photo of a teen with autism having a breakdown, implying that vaccine caused intellectual disorder. It turned out that the boy is 14-year-old Alex Echols Carrey of Eugene, Ore.
Immediately after the family learned of the image, the ailing boy's mother tweeted the actor and asked him to delete the snap. "@JimCarrey Please remove this photo of my son. You do not have permission to use his image," so she wrote.
The teen's aunt later took to Instagram to share how upset she was regarding the use of her nephew's photo. "I'm very disgusted and sickened that a celebrity would use a photo like this that was used in the first place to spread awareness of Tuberous Sclerosis to mock him and and my sister for vaccinations," she wrote.
She added that her nephew had been suffering from autism and tuberous sclerosis long before he was vaccinated. Carrey deleted the photo shortly after.
