Sean Connery’s controversial comments on hitting women resurface after death

As tributes to legendary actor Sean Connery poured in following his death, some controversial comments the star made about hitting women resurfaced.

Connery, who died at age 90 last week, infamously told Playboy in 1965, “I don’t think there is anything particularly wrong about hitting a woman, although I don’t recommend doing it in the same way that you’d hit a man.” He added that an “openedhanded slap” is “justified” if “all other alternatives fail and there has been plenty of warning,” and further said, “If a woman is a bitch, or hysterical, or bloody-minded continually, then I’d do it.”

Several critics took to Twitter to remind the public about the James Bond star’s past statements, including actor Bradley Whitford, who wrote on Twitter, “Sean Connery seemed cool. Unapologetically beating women is not cool.”

“Sean Connery was an actor loved by many. He was also an abuser, a misogynist and an advocate for violence against women. The system enabled him to have a long and illustrious career. It’s ok to critique that,” one woman tweeted over the weekend.

Years after his initial remarks, Connery addressed his comments during a 1987 interview with Barbara Walters, saying that he still stood by what he told Playboy.

“I haven’t changed my opinion … If you have tried everything else — and women are pretty good at this — they can’t leave it alone,” he told Walters at the time. “They want to have the last word and you give them the last word, but they’re not happy with the last word. They want to say it again, and get into a really provocative situation, then I think it’s absolutely right.”

Six years later, he clarified his comments in an interview with Vanity Fair, suggesting that his words were taken out of context.

“I was really saying that to slap a woman was not the crudest thing you can do to her,” he told Vanity Fair in 1993. “I said that in my book — it’s much more cruel to psychologically damage somebody … to put them in such distress that they really come to hate themselves. Sometimes there are women who take it to the wire. That’s what they’re looking for, the ultimate confrontation — they want a smack.”

And then in 2006, Connery seemingly flipped his position on the matter.

“My view is I don’t believe that any level of abuse against women is ever justified under any circumstances. Full stop,” he told the Times of London in 2006.

That same year, Connery’s first wife, Diane Cilento, claimed in her autobiography, “My Nine Lives,” that he was abusive during their marriage, which lasted from 1962 to 1973. Connery denied the allegations.

The film legend and Cilento shared 57-year-old son Jason. Connery went on to marry Micheline Roquebrune in 1975.

Roquebrune said her husband “went peacefully” in his sleep after battling dementia.