Snowboarder Shaun White won’t be winning any medals for his Halloween costume after offending the Special Olympics.
White received near-immediate backlash after he posted a picture to his Instagram over the weekend and captioned it “Simple jack and the kid!!!” referring to his own Tropic Thunder-inspired costume and that of an unidentified friend who dressed up as musician Kid Rock.
“We are truly disappointed that Shaun White, an acclaimed Olympian, would choose this costume which is so offensive and causes so much pain,” Special Olympics co-founder, Soeren Palumbo, said in a statement. “Disability is not a joke nor should it be a punchline. We hope that Shaun White and others learn that this just continues stigma, stereotypes and discrimination.”
The 32-year-old athlete’s getup was inspired by a fictional character, played by Ben Stiller from the 2008 movie, who lives with mental disabilities. The character’s apparent point in Tropic Thunder is to poke fun at Hollywood’s tendency to tell the stories of the disabled as Oscar bait.
But the movie was protested by disability advocates upon its release because of its “ableist portrayal of an intellectually or developmentally disabled person,” according to HuffPost.
White removed the picture from his Instagram feed Monday afternoon.
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