Actor John Cusack has apologized for sharing a now deleted anti-Semitic image on his Twitter account.
Cusack on Monday retweeted a cartoon image of a hand emblazoned with the Star of David pushing down on a group of people accompanied by a quote saying, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." Cusack also added his own comment — “follow the money” — to the retweet.
The quote is incorrectly attributed to Voltaire in the picture and was actually said by white nationalist and neo-Nazi leader Kevin Alfred Strom, who has previously taken credit for it.
Although Cusack initially defended the tweet to several social media critics, the actor then deleted the image, which was sent to his 1.6 million followers, saying that a "bot" was to blame for the tweet, adding, "I thought I was endorsing a pro Palestinian justice retweet — of an earlier post — it came I think from a different source - Shouldn’t Have retweeted."
"Made a mistake retweeting that — as i said — and sorry," Cusack wrote.
Shortly after they were posted Monday, the tweets with the anti-Semitic image and his initial defense of it were deleted.
The actor then clarified that a “bot is an alt right account — same thing — not a person but an organized agenda."
Although the actor did not address the comment he added to the image, he did backtrack in a barrage of apology tweets saying, "it's clear that even if it was Israel's flag & even if you don't have antisemitic bone in your body, it is still an antisemitic cartoon."
Cusack did not return a request for comment by NBC News.
