Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

William Shatner Is Upset About His Interview In The Daily Beast

On Wednesday, The Daily Beast published an interview with William Shatner – who was very beautiful when he was young – in which the Priceline Negotiator off-handedly mentioned he wasn’t “trying to do anything to get deported.”

Shatner, who is Canadian, was responding to a question from the interviewer, Craig Modderno, about an anti-Trump petition that most of Shatner’s ‘Star Trek’ castmates signed.

The interview also touched on Shatner’s love for horses, his desire to sing a song on ‘The Voice,’ and (very briefly) his new book. But because the Internet is a sadistic place where people like to take the comments of celebrities out of context in order to “grow” their “followers” so they can charge advertisers more, the deportation remark was immediately targeted by entertainment bloggers.

This morning, Shatner, an avid presence on Twitter, tweeted out a response to the interview.

This, unfortunately, is why we can’t have nice things, like interviews with William Shatner. God-willing, Shatner’s “never again” is hyperbolic, or refers only to future interviews with The Daily Beast, but to play with fire like that in the first place is irresponsible of Modernno and of everyone with an opinion about 86-year-old white men living in fear of getting deported back to Canada.

For the record, Shatner’s new book is called “Spirit of the Horse: A Celebration in Fact and Fable.” It has one review and five stars on Amazon and I am definitely going to read it.

Becky Scott is the editor of The Schmooze. You can contact her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter at @arr_scott

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.