Jennifer Lawrence apologized for her actions after the backlash she received from Native Hawaiians while shooting the second Hunger Games film.

Jennifer Lawrence’s reputation in Hollywood is one of great respect. A majority of the projects that chooses to be a part of become extremely critically acclaimed, not only for their story and direction but also for the way that she portrays her characters. These are some of the most diverse, complicated, and real characters, played most perfectly by the actress.

The best examples of her unique skills in film are Winter’s Bone, American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook, and Joy, all of which have won some or the other form of Oscar nomination or win.
Jennifer Lawrence
Outside of her professional achievements, Lawrence is also known for her amazing sense of humor, constantly having some joke or the other to tell. The unique thing about her humor is the fact that it is usually self-deprecating and not pointed at anyone else. While this works most of the time, it isn’t always the case, as she learned when she told the story of the time, she offended Native Hawaiians by scratching her behind in an inappropriate place.

Jennifer Lawrence’s ‘Butt-Scratching’ Story

During an interview with The Graham Norton Show, via Jack2013, Jennifer Lawrence recalled her time shooting for the second Hunger Games film, which took place in Hawaii. The shooting took place around ancient rocks that were sacred to the people of Hawaii, so much so that nobody was allowed to sit on them. It seems that Lawrence did not care much about this, and ended up using those rocks to scratch her behind, stating that they were perfect for that.
Jennifer Lawrence in a still from The Hunger Games

“I, however, was in a wetsuit for this whole shoot so – oh my God, they were so good for butt-itching. One rock that I was butt-scratching on ended up coming loose. It was a giant boulder and it rolled down this mountain and almost killed our sound guy.” She added, “His whole station got destroyed, it was a huge dramatic deal and all the Hawaiians were like ‘Oh my god, it’s the curse’. And I’m round the corner going, ‘I’m your curse – I wedged it loose with my ass’.”

She did this throughout filming, getting away with it, a not sturring much attention. This was until one of these rocks came loose. The rock fell down a mountain, nearly killing their audio engineer. This wasn’t all that happened, as the natives of Hawaii were horrified when they saw this happen. The reason for this was that they thought that an ancient curse had come to kill them all. Lawrence, jokingly told in this interview, it was ironic, considering she was the ancient curse, with her being responsible for what happened.

She Got A Lot Of Backlash For The Incident

After Jennifer Lawrence spoke about this during this interview, the internet was enraged about what happened. They were angry, not only because of what the actress did, with it being extremely insensitive and wrong, but also the fact that she joked about it during her interview. They were disgusted about the fact she found destroying a cultural or historical side to be a funny story that did not belong to her culture, adding that this was a crime.
Jennifer Lawrence

“I meant absolutely no disrespect to the Hawaiian people,” she said. “I really thought that I was being self-deprecating about the fact that I was ‘the curse’, but I understand the way it was perceived was not funny and I apologize if I offended anyone.”

Due to the amount of backlash that she received, the actress felt obligated to apologize for what happened, understanding now that what she did was wrong. According to BBC News, she went on to her Facebook account to apologize for their actions. She stated that she meant absolutely no disrespect to the Hawaiian people and apologized to anyone who got offended by this.