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Film Critic calls 'Jackass' star's death 'tragic' while reiterating previous message about dangers of drinking and driving.
By Gil Kaufman

Ryan Dunn and Bam Margera
Photo: Jordan Strauss/ WireImage

Film critic Roger Ebert took some intense heat on Monday for his tweet about the car-crash death of "Jackass" star Ryan Dunn and Dunn's friend Zachary Hartwell. Although police are still investigating the cause of the crash, Ebert's quip that "friends don't let jackasses drink and drive" incensed Dunn's friends and fans.

Best bud Bam Margera responded, "I just lost my best friend, I have been crying hysterical for a full day and piece of sh-- Roger Ebert has the gall to put in his 2 cents ... about a Jackass drunk driving and his is one, f--- you! Millions of people are crying right now, shut your fat f---ing mouth!"

Ebert seemed to backtrack on his comment on Tuesday (June 21), offering his condolences to Dunn's and Hartwell's loved ones. "To begin with, I offer my sympathy to Ryan Dunn's family and friends, and to those of Zachary Hartwell, who also died in the crash," wrote Ebert, who is a well-known and widely followed Twitter user. "I mean that sincerely. It is tragic to lose a loved one. I also regret that my tweet about the event was considered cruel. It was not intended as cruel. It was intended as true."

Although he appeared to be apologizing for the haste of his tweet, Ebert did not completely back down from his comments, adding, "I have no way of knowing if Ryan Dunn was drunk at the time of his death. What I knew before posting my tweet was that not long before his death, he posted a photo on [Tumblr] showing himself drinking with two friends ... What did I mean by that? I meant exactly what I wrote. I wasn't calling Ryan Dunn a jackass. In Twitter shorthand, I was referring to his association with [the movie and show] 'Jackass.' I thought that was clear. I note that Bam Margera uses the word 'jackass' in the same way in his tweet."

Ebert then referred to an NBC Philadelphia report that noted that stories posted Tuesday morning mentioned that Dunn reportedly drank three light beers and three shots before leaving the Barnaby's pub in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and that Margera's mother, April, told the station that Dunn was a notorious fast driver and she counseled him to slow down "every day" following a bad car crash more than a decade ago.

"I don't know what happened in this case, and I was probably too quick to tweet," Ebert wrote. "That was unseemly. I do know that nobody has any business driving on a public highway at 110 mph, as some estimated — or fast enough, anyway, to leave a highway and fly through 40 yards of trees before crashing. That is especially true if the driver has had three shots and three beers. Two people were killed. What if the car had crashed into another car?"

The film critic concluded his post by reiterating "friends don't let friends drink and drive."

What do you think of Roger Ebert's latest comments? Tell us in the comments.

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