Los Angeles: Hollywood star Melissa McCarthy has apologised to her fans for giving a donation to a charity group with a history of anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion activism. As a way to promote her upcoming movie “Superintelligence”, the actor and streamer HBO Max partnered for a campaign called 20 Days of Kindness. The campaign aimed to “highlight and donate USD 20,000 to a different good cause daily for 20 days while encouraging others to lend their support along the way”, according to HBO Max.
The charities listed were Planned Parenthood, Make-A-Wish, Human Rights Campaign, Girls Who Code, The Trevor Project and Exodus Cry, a Sacramento-based Christian organisation that describes itself as “committed to abolishing sex trafficking and breaking the cycle of commercial sexual exploitation”. But Daily Beast reported that Exodus Cry’s CEO Benjamin Nolot has a history of inflammatory rhetoric towards gay people and abortion. In a video posted on Instagram, McCarthy apologised for the error in selecting the charity and also announced that the USD 20,000 donation has been rescinded.
“Hi there. It has come to our attention that our 20 Days of Kindness, which is somethinga 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,” McCarthy said. “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,” she added.
The 50-year-old actor further said that she is “incredibly grateful” to the fans for pointing out the mistake. “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,” she said.
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