FILE: Brett Favre, the legendary QB, said he is "sickened by what these groups stand for and concerned about their role in fueling today’s negative political climate."
Brett Favre says he was duped into recording an anti-Semitic video by a group posing as a veterans organization.
The Hall of Fame hurler was paid $500 to make the recording riddled with coded hate speech and conspiracy theories for the Cameo service, which pays celebrities to record short, personalized video messages.
Posing as a veterans organization, hate groups the Handsome Truth and the Goyim Defense League paid Favre $500 to read a statement that included several veiled anti-Semitic remarks.
“Brett Favre here with a shout-out to the Handsome Truth and the GDL boys,” Favre says in the video, according to BuzzFeed News.
“You guys are patriots in my eyes. So keep waking them up and don’t let the small get you down. Keep fighting too and don’t ever forget the USS Liberty and the men and women who died on that day. God bless and take care.”
“Waking them up” is a reference to anti-Semitic indoctrination, while “the small” is an epithet referring to yarmulkes, BuzzFeed reported. Israeli fighter jets accidentally fired on the USS Liberty in 1967, believing it was an Egyptian craft, and “Remember the USS Liberty” has become a rallying cry for conspiratorial bigots who believe the attack was intentional despite statements from both the U.S. and Israeli governments otherwise, according to BuzzFeed.
The anti-Semitic groups wrote the script and submitted it to Favre via Cameo — carefully crafting the message so it wouldn’t raise any red flags with Favre, the outlet reported.
“Here’s the deal, guys, they can reject it if they don’t like it, right,” Handsome Truth said during a livestream planning session, according to BuzzFeed. “So we were trying to get it, like — we wanted to be cryptic enough to where they would say it.”
Favre later realized he’d been had and apologized — after the groups posted the clip to social media implying that he supported their cause.
“A few days later, I was distressed to learn that the request came from an anti-Semitic group that reposted my video with comments implying that I endorsed their mission. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am therefore donating my $500 Cameo fee to Charities supporting their fight against hate and bigotry,” he said in a Facebook post Saturday.
“Like most Americans, I am sickened by what these groups stand for and concerned about their role in fueling today’s negative political climate. I thought I was creating a message to support the brave men and women of our military forces. Had I understood the source of the request, I never would have fulfilled it. All of us – myself included – need to be vigilant to protect this country from these dangers.”