Neil Patrick Harris has apologised after a truly fucked-up picture from one of his parties resurfaced on Twitter 11 years later. Ngl, this one is pretty fkn disturbing. Brace yourself.
The picture in question, which was taken at the How I Met Your Mother star’s 2011 Halloween party, shows a meat platter that was designed to look like the bloody, mangled corpse of Amy Winehouse.
It was posted and then swiftly deleted by Justin Mitika (the partner of Modern Family‘s Jesse Tyler Ferguson) who captioned it: “Look who showed up at @ActuallyNPH and @GourmetMD’S Halloween party last night. Looking good.”
As if this couldn’t get worse, Neil Patrick Harris served the platter (which some mistook for a grotesquely realistic cake) only three months after she died from alcohol poisoning at age 27.
Now the star has issued a brief statement on the matter.
“A photo recently resurfaced from a Halloween-themed party my husband and I hosted 11 years ago,” NPH told Entertainment Weekly in a statement.
“It was regrettable then, and it remains regrettable now. Amy Winehouse was a once-in-a-generation talent, and I’m sorry for any hurt this image caused.”
I hope he issues another apology for the actual platter, not just for people’s reaction to it.
Y’all, the Neil Patrick Harris/Amy Winehouse thing is even worse than it looks because that wasn’t a cake, it was a meat platter made to look like her dead body. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Google it. You will be disgusted and no longer a NPH fan.
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) May 14, 2022
The picture appeared on the public’s radar after it was reshared by writer Ashley Reese (@offbeatorbit).
“I cannot believe how many very online people over the age of 25 are just now finding out about Neil Patrick Harris’s disgusting Amy Winehouse cake,” Reese wrote.
“Yea Neil Patrick Harris quite literally had a cake mimicking Amy Winehouse’s corpse for Halloween soon after she died. I’ve loathed that man ever since.”
The tweet sparked a new wave of backlash against NPH because quite frankly, how TF does someone make a meat platter depicting a dead woman and think that is acceptable behaviour???
the way amy winehouse was treated before and after her death is so insanely disgusting :/ she deserved so much better. also fuck you neil patrick harris
— goth barbie (@altaphrodite) May 14, 2022
https://twitter.com/Captain_RUNCH/status/1524460023237206016?s=20&t=4fZR0f_J_2oFBw_I9sjW7w
Amy Winehouse dies tragically young and you serve a replica of her corpse as a meat platter shortly after her death? That’s next level deplorable.
— SB (@SB85912289) May 13, 2022
One Twitter user pointed out how overdue we are for a conversation about the way women celebrities were treated in the early 2000s and 2010s.
Society is way overdue for a discussion about the way Amy Winehouse was treated in the early 2000s and 2010s by the misogynistic celebrity media machine and the people who were a captive audience to it. Neil Patrick Harris’ fucked up corpse cake is just the tip of the iceberg.
— Figging Gingers (@ahabthepredator) May 11, 2022
Honestly, given the renaissance Lindsay Lohan and Megan Fox are experiencing now after footage resurfaced online of the misogyny they endured, it’s about time the world acknowledges the brutal treatment Amy Winehouse had to deal with.
She couldn’t even escape misogyny in death.
Sure, the meat platter was something NPH commissioned 11 years ago. Maybe he’s a changed man. At this point, these resurfaced pictures aren’t even about “cancelling” celebrities — they’re about exposing how normalised misogyny was then and often still is to this day.
Women’s bodies are not props and women’s deaths are not funny. FFS.
