Rupert Everett yesterday sparked fury after calling British soldiers "pathetic" and "whining wimps". Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph in an interview to publicise his new Channel 4 documentary about 19th century soldier Sir Richard Burton, The Victorian Sex Explorer, the actor compares modern day soldiers to old fashioned recruits and insists troops in Iraq and Afghanistan constantly "whine". “I don't think there is any point in having wars if that's how you're going to behave. It's pathetic. All this whining!” Outspoken Rupert whined, before levelling his sights at the US. “I'm totally off the States now. The reaction to 9/11 and then George Bush - really, they've got very blobby as a nation. Now they are whiny victims whose language is entirely taken from two TV shows - Friends and Sex And The City.”
However Everett was quick to issue an apology and insisted he never meant to question the troops bravery. “My flippant and irresponsible behaviour arises from a deep frustration at the fact that we seem to be continually making war, dreaming up new ones, instead of doing everything we can to avoid them,” he told BBC News. “We still go to war, but actually we haven't the stomach for it. It seems to me that embracing war means accepting its underbelly as well, torture and the unspeakable violence that spirals from the battlefield to its surroundings. You cannot be politically correct in a war.”
