Comedian Tim Allen appears to have stuck his foot in his mouth.
The actor and former star of Home Improvement recently compared being a conservative in today's political climate to 1930s Germany. The comments caught the attention of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, which has demanded an apology from Allen, according to Entertainment Weekly. The Center called Allen's remarks a "deeply offensive characterization."
Allen made the remarks while appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live and discussing attending the inauguration in January.
“You’ve gotta be real careful around here. You get beat up if don’t believe what everybody believes," he remarked. "I don’t know what happened. If you’re not part of the group, ‘you know what we believe is right,’ I go, ‘Well, I might have a problem with that.'”
Steve Goldstein, executive director of the Anne Frank Center, blasted Tim Allen on Facebook. "Tim have you lost your mind," Goldstein said in his statement. "No one in Hollywood today is subjecting you or anyone else to what the Nazis imposed on Jews in the 1930s - the world's most evil program of dehumanization, imprisonment and mass brutality, implemented by an entire national government, as the prelude for the genocide of nearly an entire people."
Goldstein went on to say that the experiences of victims of the Holocaust were not comparable to "getting turned down for a movie role." It's time for you to leave your bubble to apologize to the Jewish people and, to be sure, the other peoples also targeted by the Nazis," Goldstein said.
Fans of Tim Allen have come to his defense, sending angry emails to the Anne Frank Center and accusing Goldstein of bullying Tim Allen. Allen has yet to comment on the matter according to EW and CNN.