Dane Cook Apologizes for Joking About Aurora Movie Theater Massacre Shooting

USMagazine, Monday, July 30, 2012, 9:25am (PDT)

It didn't take long for Dane Cook to realize that his joke about July 20's tragic Aurora, CO movie theater massacre went over like a lead balloon.

One day following his comment that The Dark Knight Rises was so bad, he could see moviegoers saying, "ugh f*cking shoot me," during his Laugh Factory show in Los Angeles on Thursday, the comedian issued an apology via Twitter.

"I am devastated by the recent tragedy in Colorado and did not mean to make light of what happened," he wrote. "I made a bad judgment call with my material last night and regret making a joke at such a sensitive time. My heart goes out to all of the families and friends of the victims."

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It was hard for Cook, 40, to escape the backlash since his shocking bit was captured via video. "So I heard that the guy came into the theater about 25 minutes into the movie," Cook began, referring to armed gunman, James Holmes, who opened fire during a midnight screening of the Batman movie on July 20. "And I don't know if you've seen the movie, but the movie is pretty much a piece of crap -- yeah, spoiler alert. I know that if none of that would have happened, pretty sure that somebody in that theater, about 25 minutes in, realizing it was a piece of crap, was probably like 'ugh f*cking shoot me.'"

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Over the weekend, the outrageously outspoken Russell Brand defended his colleague's bit, as well as Daniel Tosh's rape jokes during his July 6 show.

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"I think if someone's job is a comedian and they say something, like in the analysis of the content of their statement, you should recall the bit that they're a comedian," Katy Perry's ex told reporters at a TCA panel for his FX series, BrandX, Saturday. "I've noticed a lot of people sort of remove [the fact that they are comedians] from the analysis to sort of create some storm of condemnation."

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Dane Cook Apologizes for Joking About Aurora Movie Theater Massacre Shooting