"Hey look, Cameron, there are a bunch of people you're offending right this very second. Do you see that little old lady with the shawl and the cane? The one carrying her grandson in a papoose on her back? I think she's crying."
Cameron Diaz may be used to offending entire movie theaters with her acting style (ho ho), but Friday she took on a bigger challenge: pissing off an entire country. People reports:
Diaz, 34, had visited Peru's Machu Picchu on Friday carrying a green bag with a red star and the words "Serve the People" in Chinese.The phrase, a slogan of the late Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong, touched a nerve among Peruvians still recovering from the Maoist Shining Path insurgency of the 1980s and early 1990s that left nearly 70,000 dead.
"It alludes to a concept that did so much damage to Peru, that brought about so many victims," Peruvian human rights Pablo Rojas told the Associated Press. "I don't think she should have used that bag where the followers of that ideology did so much damage."
"I sincerely apologize to anyone I may have inadvertently offended," Diaz said Sunday in a statement e-mailed to the AP. "The bag was a purchase I made as a tourist in China and I did not realize the potentially hurtful nature of the slogan printed on it."
"I'm sorry for any people's pain and suffering and it was certainly never my intention to reopen what I now know is a painful wound in this country's history," she added.
We're sure that there was even more confusion on Cam's part when a helpful Peruvian tried to inform her of her gaffe, explaining the Shining Path and Maoist guerrillas, at which point Cameron got a dazed look in her eyes while images of gorillas in red hammer-and-sickle-decorated uniforms ran through her head.
Cameron offends even more Peruvian locals at What Would Tyler Durden Do?
Cam does not offend at MrSkin.com.
