Actor Bruce Willis has apologized after he was booted from a California pharmacy for not wearing a mask on Sunday.
Speaking with PEOPLE, the “Die Hard” star said he made an error in judgment, then promoted mask-wearing.
“It was an error in judgment,” Willis told the magazine. “Be safe out there everyone and let’s continue to mask up.”
As Page Six reported, Willis reportedly made people at a Rite Aid in Los Angeles uncomfortable for not wearing a mask and was asked to leave by the staff:
Bruce Willis was asked to leave a Los Angeles Rite Aid on Monday after he refused to wear a mask, a spy tells Page Six.
The spy says people inside the store became upset that Willis, 65, wasn’t wearing a mask — despite having a bandanna tied around his neck, which he could have easily pulled up.
We’re told the “Die Hard” star, who was photographed at the store without a mask on, walked away without making his purchase.
A rep for Willis didn’t return Page Six’s request for comment.
Bruce Willis has not taken a hardline anti-mask stance throughout the pandemic. In late 2020, he even joined his wife, Emma Heming Willis, for a photograph promoting Sesame Workshop.
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Almost every week now, a celebrity has come forward to admonish people for not wearing masks or practicing social distancing. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly in December, pop icon Taylor Swift said that people should be wearing masks to protect frontline health care workers.
“God, you hope people would respect it and would understand that going out for a night isn’t worth the ripple effect that it causes,” she said. “But obviously we’re seeing that a lot of people don’t seem to have their eyes open to that — or if they do, a lot of people don’t care, which is upsetting.”
Following that, actor George Clooney said that people who don’t wear masks are like smokers insisting they can smoke in public places.
“This thought where everybody is like, ‘Well it’s my freedom.’ It’s like, that’s not how this s*** works, dumb***,” Clooney told radio host Howard Stern, as reported by The Hill.
“Your freedom is this: You’re free to smoke until your lungs turn black, but you can’t do it on the bus. And you’re free to drink until your liver comes out your a**, but you can’t drink and then get behind the wheel of a car,” he added.
Clooney said the wearing of masks could save thousands of lives until the vaccine rolls out.
“There have to be certain rules,” he asserted. “This is one that says: Put on a f***ing mask and we’ll get through this. We’ve got vaccines coming — let’s save another 60,000 lives before the vaccines.”
“I don’t get it. I simply do not get it. It is literally the least you can do,” said Tom Hanks in July. “And if anybody wants to build up an argument about doing the least you can do, I wouldn’t trust them with a driver’s license. I mean when you drive a car you have to obey speed limits, you got to use your turn signals, you have to avoid hitting pedestrians.”