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Los Angeles — Green Book director Peter Farrelly said that he's deeply sorry and embarrassed after film website The Cut found a 20-year-old story where colleagues said Farrelly liked to flash his genitals as a joke.
The Cut on Wednesday published excerpts of a 1998 Newsweek story saying Farrelly and his brother and frequent filmmaking partner Bobby Farrelly liked to use ruses to get people to look at Farrelly's penis.
Farrelly issued a statement through his publicists saying the stories' descriptions are true.
"I was an idiot," Farrelly said. "I did this decades ago and I thought I was being funny and the truth is I'm embarrassed and it makes me cringe now. I'm deeply sorry."
Those who told Newsweek they'd been tricked included film executive Tom Rothman and actress Cameron Diaz, who was starring in the Farrelly brothers' comedy There's Something About Mary at the time.
On the same day a 2015 tweet about Muslims and 9/11 from co-writer Nick Vallelonga also resurfaced.
In the tweet, he said then-presidential-candidate Donald Trump was correct that television news on 9/11 showed Muslims in Jersey City cheering and that he had seen it.
There's no evidence such celebrations occurred.
Vallelonga, whose father was the inspiration for one of the movie's main characters, said in a statement on Thursday that he apologises to everyone associated with Green Book, especially to star Mahershala Ali, who is Muslim.
Green Book, which stars Mahershala Ali as a black concert pianist and Viggo Mortenson as his Italian-American driver who become unlikely friends, won a Golden Globe Award for best musical or comedy film.
