Cowell Deletes Twitter, The Presets Ask For Kindness In Bali Nine Aftermath

Actor Brendan Cowell was one of several Aussie celebrities involved in yesterday’s badly misjudged Bali Nine mercy video, but he became the focus of much of the backlash, thanks to his provocative comments.

In the video, he urged Prime Minister Tony Abbott to “get over to Indonesia” and “show some balls” to try and stop the executions of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.

The views expressed in the video drew criticism from as far up as Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who insisted that the federal government had in fact done everything in its power to save the pair.

Cowell issued an apology on Twitter, acknowledging that his comments might have come across as “ignorant”, but social media being the beast it is, especially around such a sensitive subject as the death penalty, he copped it, and then some.

Twitter users quickly piled on to the actor, calling him out with the kind of language that you wouldn’t repeat to your mum (unless your mum is an old-fashioned sailor, in which case, we’d sort of like to meet her?).

Cowell has since deactivated his account, and his page now appears as above. 

The Presets also found themselves copping a lot of criticism earlier in the week, after Kim Moyes‘ took a headlong dive into the debate, and told people who support the death penalty that he does not want them as fans of the band.

Earlier this morning, taking an entirely different tack than Cowell, Moyes’ bandmate Julian Hamilton made a heartfelt post about the need to celebrate life in the wake of today’s executions. 

Elsewhere, Clive Palmer plans to introduce a private members bill that will try and stop the executions of Australians overseas:

.@CliveFPalmer to introduce private members bill to stop future executions of Australians overseas #Bali9 #auspol pic.twitter.com/64gvGeUYGn

— ABC News 24 (@ABCNews24) April 29, 2015