Actress Melissa McCarthy apologized on Thursday night for HBO Max’s $20,000 donation to Exodus Cry, an organization led by a CEO with a virulently anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion history.
The donation was made as part of a “20 Days of Kindness” campaign to promote McCarthy’s new film Superintelligence.
The Wrap reports: “According to The Daily Beast (paywall), the group’s CEO Benjamin Nolot, who also wrote and directed the Netflix documentary film ‘Liberated,’ has a history of inflammatory rhetoric towards homosexuals and abortion. Nolot once referred to homosexuality as ‘an unspeakable offense to God’ and compared abortion to the Holocaust. Nolot has said that his views on LGBTQ have ‘evolved’ more recently and that he advocates ‘for the right of all people to be free from all forms of oppression.'”
Said McCarthy in a video posted to Instagram Thursday night: “Hi there. It has come to our attention that our 20 Days of Kindness, which is something–a kindness up that we started to kind of shine a light on 20 great charities — had one in there that, there’s no other way to say it, we blew it. We made a mistake and we backed a charity that, upon proper vetting, stands for everything that we do not. So I want to thank everyone, on social media who said, ‘What are you doing? Are you sure you want to back this?’ Because the answer was no we do not.”
“We have pulled it. We are so incredibly grateful for you ringing the bell and helping us be better,” McCarthy added. “We’re sorry for our mistake. Oh boy, are we sorry for it. [I] can’t believe that we missed it. And that’s it. And I just want to say that I hope it doesn’t ding the other charities because they’re really doing some amazing things, and 20 Days of Kindness Is really meant to shine the light on all of those wonderful charities. So, let the kindness continue… and thank you. Thanks for the help, we really needed it.”
