David Sutcliffe, the Canadian actor best known for his role as Rory’s dad Christopher on “Gilmore Girls,” said he was being “ironic” when he wrote on Twitter that he would be proud to smoke with one of the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol in early January.
In a tweet pinned to his profile, Sutcliffe denied rumours that he was part of the pro-Trump mob who stormed the Capitol, adding, “I would have been proud to share a smoke with this great Patriot!” It was posted with a re-tweet from one of the rioters, who posted a video of himself smoking weed inside the Capitol building.
In an e-mail response to a request for comment, Sutcliffe told HuffPost Canada, “I support peaceful protest. I do not support what happened at the capital [sic].”
When asked for further explanation, he responded, “What’s that expression about having to explain a joke? Let’s just say the tweet is meant to be ironic.”
It may not have been clear to Sutcliffe’s Twitter followers that the tweet was ironic because he has liked and shared posts from far-right figures. Several days before the pinned tweet denial, Sutcliffe re-tweeted Mike Cernovich deflecting blame about the Capitol attacks.
The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Cernovich an “extremist” based on his pro-rape comments. Cernovich “claims to defend ‘free speech,’ in particular the freedom to harass women and make misogynistic, violent comments,” the organization says on its website.
Cernovich first made a name for himself online during the Gamergate controversy, when a campaign of online harassment was directed at women in the video-game industry. “He believed that anti-feminist campaign among some online gamers was ‘the most important battle of the culture war this century,’” the Washington Post wrote. A trained lawyer, he offered his legal services to men accused of harassment.
Cernovich is also one of the architects of the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, which led a man to bring three guns to a D.C. pizza parlour in 2017. Edgar Maddison Welch fired an assault rifle in the restaurant because he believed it was part of a child sex-trafficking ring that did not exist.
Sutcliffe has liked several of Cernovich’s other tweets, and had Twitter exchanges with him, albeit on fairly innocuous topics.
In a “Gilmore Girls”-related twist, one of Cernovich’s targets was “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn, whose brother Sean was on “Gilmore Girls” with Sutcliffe.
Sutcliffe also liked a tweet stating “Women’s politics is best for the home. Men’s politics is best for the world.”
He’s also tweeted or re-tweeted measured thoughts about the future of technology, and about cats and Bitcoin, among other topics.
Sutcliffe was born in Saskatchewan and graduated from the University of Toronto before moving to L.A. to pursue an acting career. On “Gilmore Girls,” he had a recurring role as Lorelai (Lauren Graham)’s ex-boyfriend and Rory (Alexis Bledel)’s dad. He’s also known for his roles on the “Grey’s Anatomy” spinoff, “Private Practice,” and the CBC police drama, “Cracked.”
In 2019, he announced his retirement from acting. “My heart hasn’t been in it for years, but it wasn’t easy letting go of a career that gave me so much for so long,” he wrote on Facebook.
Since then, he’s worked as a core energetics practitioner. He describes the practice as a “powerful somatic psychotherapy that uncovers the unconscious emotional blocks that keep us from being fully alive and engaged with life.”
Sutcliffe did not respond to HuffPost’s request for further comment at time of publish.