Actress Bijou Phillips has apologized for bullying Mean Girls star Daniel Franzese and teasing him about his sexuality.
“I want to write to address what Daniel has said. I don’t remember that time well, those years are a blur. I was a teenager and reckless in my behavior. I know Daniel to be a trustworthy and honest person, and to find out through social media that I was not the friend I thought I was to him made me so sad,” Phillips said to TMZ.
Videos by PopCulture.com
“I am so mortified by this behavior and have contacted Daniel and apologized to him privately. I am not and never have been homophobic. I have nothing but love for the LGBTQ community and Daniel,” she went on to say.
In an unfortunate ironic twist, Franzese, who played Damian in 2004’s Mean Girls, claimed that Phillips mistreated him on the set of the film Bully, which the two starred in together back in 2001.
“She body shamed me and ridiculed me about my sexuality and physically assaulted me,” Franzese claimed.
He also recounted that one day on set she obnoxiously and repeatedly questioned him, in front of other people, if he was gay. He responded by acknowledging that he was bisexual and when he returned to set the following day she yelled, “Oh look! The Bi guy is here!”
On a separate occasion, Franzese recalled that Phillips grabbed onto his nipple and “twisted it hard through my shirt and laughed.” Additionally, he claimed that she once kicked him extremely hard in his head and to this day he isn’t sure if that caused a concussion or not.
In a series of Tweets posted on Sunday night, Franzese expressed forgiveness toward Phillips for what happened in the past, and accepted her apology.
