Insurance company Aflac fired Gilbert Gottfried as the voice of the duck after his recent tweets that joked about the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
“Japan is really advanced. They don’t go to the beach. The beach comes to them,” was one of the many tweets that got the comedian fired.
“Gilbert’s recent comments about the crisis in Japan were lacking in humor and certainly do not represent the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac,” Michael Zunda, the company’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, said in a statement. He also said that Gottfried was not the voice of the Japanese version of the Aflac duck.
Aflac gets most of its revenue from Japan, and the company announced that they are giving the International Red Cross 100 million yen (U.S. $1.2 million) to aid in disaster relief.
Zuna said Aflac, “will immediately set plans in motion to conduct a nationwide casting call to find a new voice of the iconic Aflac Duck.”
