Emily Blunt ‘astonished' by outrage over US citizenship joke

 British-born actor says quip in which she poked fun at a Republican presidential candidacy debate was not meant to offend














  Emily Blunt has revealed her astonishment at the furore generated by her joke about taking American citizenship.
The Sicario star was labelled unpatriotic in the rightwing media after quipping that she felt she had “made a terrible mistake” after gaining her US passport and watching the first republican US presidential candidacy debate.
“I was bummed,” she said on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show on 30 September. “I was sort of astonished by the outrage, because it was meant completely as an innocuous joke. So I think I was more taken aback, so it did bum me out.”

Blunt said the comments had been “like catnip” for those who wanted to criticise her, but pointed out that she passed the citizenship test with flying colours.
“You have to get six out of 10 [questions] right, and I got the first six right, so they stopped,” said the Devil Wears Prada actor, who retains her UK passport. She revealed that she was asked: “Who’s the head of the executive branch? Who’s the vice-president?”
The actor was forced to apologise after making the citizenship comments. In an interview with NBC’s Today programme, she said: “It was so not the intention to hurt anybody or cause any offence, so I really apologise to those that I caused offence to. It was just an off-hand joke. I think I’ll probably leave the political jokes to [talk show] Late Night or something.”
Anger among rightwing critics was compounded by Blunt’s appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel talk show after gaining her citizenship, during which she joked that she was “not entirely thrilled about it” and was distressed at having lost the ability to look down on Americans.