Rotten Onion Tweet: Who Thought Anyone Would Laugh?

Satirical websiteThe Onion experienced a huge backlash due to an outrageous tweet calling 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis the “c” word. On Monday, Steve Hannah, CEO of the Onion posted a personal and contrite apology to Facebook. In it, he admitted the tweet was crude and offensive and told the youngest Oscar nominee she “deserved better.” He made a point of saying that such humor would not have been all right even if Miss Wallis was not a child. “No person should be subjected to such a senseless, humorless comment masquerading as satire.” Disciplining the person or persons responsible for the tweet was also mentioned.

Her parents should demand that they fire and reveal the perpetrator(s). It’s just insane that anyone would think that saying such a thing about a child would be funny.

Oscar host Seth MacFarlane is also getting some heat for using Quvenzhané age in connection with George Clooney’s dating habits. During the Oscar telecast, he said of her youth: “To give you an idea how young she is it’ll be 16 years before she’s too old for Clooney.” Bad taste, yeah, but nowhere near as disgraceful as The Onion tweet.

Quvenzhané Wallis was up for a Best Actress Oscar against Emmanuel Riva, Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Lawrence and Naomi Watts. Jennifer Lawrence won for her role in Silver Linings Playbook.

Quvenzhané, in the meantime, already has another high-profile role on the horizon. She is reportedly going to be playing the role of “Annie” in the SONY production due out next year, the same one that Willow Smith was originally going to star in.