TV-MOVIES
The Real Reason Gilbert Gottfried Was Fired From Voicing The Aflac Duck
By PAULI POISUO
Though Gilbert Gottfried took roles in family-friendly projects, he rarely positioned himself as easy entertainment. Part of his esteem among his peers was that he told the jokes he wanted to tell, and if someone didn't like them, he was perfectly fine with them leaving.
In March 2011, Gottfried reacted to the tsunami that had devastated Japan with a series of Twitter jokes. "Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them," stated one of his multiple tweets about the sensitive subject.
Aflac was decidedly not in on the joke, especially since three-quarters of the company's business was in Japan. As a response to Gottfried's tweets, they promptly stopped working with the comedian and started looking for a new voice for their mascot duck.