Eagles of Death Metal frontman Jesse Hughes has apologized for comments he made about student-led gun protests.
The apology comes five days after he labeled the surviving students of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting ‘disgusting vile abusers of the dead.’
In a video posted to Instagram he said his remarks, “did not convey the way I feel about a variety of topics.”
“What I intended to be a statement about the hijacking by any side of the aisle of the beautiful agenda of a movement of our nation’s youth came off seeming like a mean-spirited and personal attack and slight of the youth themselves.”
He continued by saying he was, “truly sorry.”
“I did not mean to hurt anyone or cause any harm. As someone who’s watched their friends shot in front of their eyes, and seen people killed that they love, I should have handled this a lot more maturely and responsibly, and I did not do that and I messed up. I hope that you’re able to forgive me, but please know that I did not mean to do what it seems like I was doing.”
Hughes witnessed a mass shooting in 2015 when Eagles of Death Metal’s Paris show at The Bataclan was attacked.
In his original remarks he also spoke about this experience saying, “As the survivor of a mass shooting I can tell you from first-hand experience that all of you protesting and taking days off from school insult the memory of those who were killed and abuse and insult me and every other lover of liberty by your every action,” he raged.
Hughes has been a supporter of gun rights in the past. After the Paris terror attack he caused controversy by suggesting that they wouldn’t have happened if France didn’t have such strict gun laws.