Controversial actor Rupert Everett has accused British soldiers risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan of being “whining wimps”, it emerged today.
The 49-year-old, whose father is a retired major and has relatives who earned Victoria Crosses, branded modern recruits as “pathetic” and claimed: “The whole point of being in the Army is wanting to get killed.”
The gay star has just finished filming a portrait of the 19th Century soldier and adventurer Sir Richard Burton for the Channel 4 documentary The Victorian Sex Explorer.
“The whole point of being in the Army is wanting to get killed, wanting to test yourself to the limits. Now you have to fly 15,000ft above the war zone to avoid getting hit.
“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!”
And risking further fury from veterans, the actor who once worked as a rent boy after running away from boarding school at age 15, told the Sunday Telegraph: “The whole point of being in the Army is going to war and getting yourself blown up.
I prefer the General George S. Patton theory: “Make the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country.”
“That and pissing on prisoners. Yet we all get shocked by Abu Ghraib.”
“But that’s war. If you don’t like that side of it, don’t do it. Of course soldiers are going to piss on the first prisoners they take. It goes with the territory.”
Instead of wasting piss, I’d rather we just execute them and save tax dollars as well as the trouble of feeding, clothing, and guarding the dirtbags.
Everett, whose most recent film rolls include parts in Stardust, St Trinian’s, and the voice of Prince Charming in Shrek, served one year in the Army Cadets while at the Catholic public school Ampleforth.
But he added: “It wasn’t for me. I would have liked to have been in the Army in Burton’s time, because you could do more or less what you wanted.
“They would give you four years to go off and explore. Now what do you get in the Army?
“Bad helmets and Basra. Your guns don’t work and everyone hates you when you get back.”
Let’s see, the military’s not for him because you can’t do what you want, the helmets are a fashion faux pas, and everyone will hate you. This is coming from a limey fudgepacker who failed the aptitude and leadership tests for entry into the Royal Military Academy. Not only that, but I’m willing to bet that the average British troop who served in Basra would just love to get ahold of little Rupert and give him a block of instruction on “whining”.
Last week the actor, who has a history of being loose-tongued, described Americans as “whiny victims” whose entire language is taken from Friends and Sex And The City.
And he said we live in a repressed Victorian-style culture, obsessed with the “authority of what Posh is wearing”.
“All the problems we have now, they’re all really about people not daring to stand up and say anything,” he said.
And speaking about Americans, he said: “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 – and there’s nothing sexy about them any more.
“And that kind of semi-blindness about the rest of the world, which was attractive when America was exciting, is really unattractive now.”
Well Everett, count me in as one of those who dares to stand up to asshats like you. What is it about the reaction to 9/11 that you think is “blobby”? Too much? Too little? Too late?
Yeah, America was so much more ‘exciting’ before we were attacked by Islamic goons hellbent on our destruction, and we had to hit the bastards where they live and breed.
I don’t watch Freinds or Sex And The City. Nor have I ever been enthralled with the Spice Girl bimbos.
You’re not only ‘off the States’, you’re ‘off your trolley’.