William Shatner is defending himself against people who felt that he should have attended Leonard Nimoy’s funeral. Captain Kirk could not make it to his former first officer’s funeral in California because he was already in Florida where he was committed to attend a Red Cross benefit.
The criticisms against Shatner were really uncalled for. What exactly did people expect him to do: get Scotty to beam him from the benefit to the funeral?
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But for some reason the New York Daily News called him “Captain Jerk.” It even posted a preview of its front page on Twitter and called on people to comment about Shatner.
The paper probably did not expect the backlash that it suffered, however, as most of the postings criticized the tabloid for sensationalist headlines. Some of the tweets in response read, “It’s an awful headline, absolutely no need for it.” “sick inconsiderate tabloid rubbish, ” and “@WilliamShatner @NYDailyNews bunch of assholes. don’t listen to em. they’re just trying to sell their shitass paper.”
Shatner tweeted about it, “@NYDailyNews You know what I find puzzling. The headline is horrible but the article contradicts it.”
“Walking out on a major fundraiser wouldn’t have you calling me a jerk for leaving a charity high & dry? Hmm?” he said.
He also tweeted, “I chose to honor a commitment I made months ago to appear at a charitable fundraiser. A lot of money was raised. So here I am; tell me off.”
The 83 year old actor also told the tabloid show “Inside Edition, ” “My understanding is mourn the dead but celebrate life. I chose to celebrate life by going to the Red Cross gathering in Palm Beach, raised a lot of money for the Red Cross.”
“In that ceremony, in that time, I asked over a thousand people to remember Leonard Nimoy and Maury Hurley, another wonderful writer and another dear friend of mine who died this week. “