Jameela Jamil Says She Now ‘Understands The Rage’ After Initially Supporting Ellen DeGeneres

Actor Jameela Jamil has rolled back her defense of Ellen DeGeneres over a controversial photo of the talk show host with former President George W. Bush.

DeGeneres defended her friendship with Bush on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” on Tuesday. In her explanation of the photo — in which she was shown laughing with the former Republican president at a Dallas Cowboys game over the weekend — the liberal LGBTQ advocate stressed the importance of kindness.

“I’m friends with a lot of people who don’t share the same beliefs that I have,” DeGeneres said.

“When I say be kind to one another,” she added, “I don’t mean only the people that think the same way that you do. I mean be kind to everyone.”

Jamil shared the video of DeGeneres’ explanation Tuesday on social media — much like Reese Witherspoon and her “The Good Place” co-star Kristen Bell.

In the now-deleted tweet, Jamil, who is British, praised DeGeneres’ handling of the backlash.

“I’ve never seen someone in the public eye handle something like this, in this way,” she said, according to BuzzFeed. “And use it to make what is actually an incredibly necessary point in our society. It was just very strong and interesting. We explore this in season 4 of The Good Place.”

Soon after sharing the post, Jamil got a fair amount of heat for supporting DeGeneres.

On Wednesday, Jamil replaced her deleted tweet with a new one.

In her new post, the actor said that, after “learning today about the full extent of Bush’s heinous presidency,” “I now understand the rage.”

Jamil also said in her post that when she was attending school in the United Kingdom, she wasn’t taught much about Bush other than hearing “he was stupid.” In a reference presumably about Tony Blair, said that Brits “were dealing with our own epic nightmare of a prime minister back then.”

Jamil did experience some criticism for not knowing more about Bush when she was a teenager in the U.K. but retorted, “Are you experts on all world leaders from back then?”

“I love learning and growth and massively applaud anyone who says they don’t/didn’t know the answer and seeks it out,” Jamil followed up in another tweet. “I personally think that’s cool and hope that we all feel safe to do that, so we can all evolve together.”

Aside from publicly opposing gay marriage and other rights for the queer community during his presidency, many consider Bush to be a war criminal.

In 2003, his administration began a war based on the false claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The Iraq War cost the U.S. more than $5.6 trillion, according to a 2018 Brown University study. Brown also found that an estimated 250,000 civilians died in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan during Bush’s supposed “war on terror.”