Comedian Chelsea Handler was invited to take over the Twitter account for The Huffington Post during Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony, and drew controversy over her tweets related to the film “12 Years a Slave.”
“Uganda Be Kidding Me,” she posted whenever the film received an award. It’s also the name of her new book, which she plugged repeatedly during her HuffPo takeover.
In one tweet, she wrote, “Congratulations #12yearsaslave Go to Africa or buy #ugandabekiddingme http://amzn.to/1de1ka9 #aheadofthecurve #Oscars.”
People responded via Twitter with words like “disgraceful,” ”offensive” and “racist.”
Huffington Post senior executive director Perri Dorset said the site was upfront about the Twitter feed takeover and has invited celebrities to do so in the past, adding, “the views are theirs not ours.”
Handler also took a swipe at Kenyan supporting actress winner Lupita Nyong’o, tweeting, “#AngelinaJolie just filed adoption papers #lupitanyongo #Oscars -@chelseahandler.”
