Thandiwe Newton Slams Sean Penn For His Recent Controversial Comments

Sean Penn has quite the knack for spewing controversial comments that lead to damaging his once-stellar reputation. In recent years, the award-winning actor has released statements that led people to believe Penn may not be all he's cracked up to be.

In 2015, Penn made a bad joke at the Oscars, asking how director Alejandro G. Inarritu, who hails from Mexico, got his green card. He received backlash afterward, but he made it clear that he's unapologetic. "I have absolutely no apologies," Penn said at the time. "In fact, I have a big f*** you for ... anybody who is so stupid not to have gotten the irony when you've got a country that is so xenophobic." Three years later, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Penn said that the social movement "was largely shouldered by a kind of receptacle of the salacious" and that it exists to "divide men and women."

Penn is clearly not one to hold his tongue about pressing issues, and this time is no different. In his latest interview with the Independent, the actor claimed that men these days have become "feminized." "I have these very strong women in my life who do not take masculinity as a sign of oppression toward them," he told the outlet. "There are a lot of, I think, cowardly genes that lead to people surrendering their jeans and putting on a skirt." He unsurprisingly received backlash on the internet, with "Westworld" star Thandiwe Newton even going out of her way to call out the actor.

Thandiwe Newton cannot quite believe what she heard from Sean Penn. She took to Twitter to express her disappointment, underscoring that what the actor said was pure nonsense. "Dude what are you SAY-ING?? Like for REAL?" she wrote. "You're a jibbering FOOL. MF you used to be sexy but now you're just tragic."

She also expressed disbelief over how Penn managed to say the statement with his daughter Dylan in the same room, as she also happened to be there to promote the film "Flag Day" along with him. "In front of your DAUGHTER!? That poor little mite," Newton continued. "Thank God her Mum's so dope."

Newton isn't the only one who voiced their distaste for Penn's comments online. Many also shared their two cents, saying how disappointed they are that an actor who once portrayed queer leader Harvey Milk on film managed to dish out transphobic statements. "I feel sorry for Sean Penn," writer Charlotte Clymer tweeted. "He won an Oscar for playing one of the most iconic queer leaders in American history, and yet, even the preparation he did for that role failed to liberate him from the prison of his own gendered insecurity. Being Sean Penn is punishment in itself."