TV Guide Canada Issues Retraction for Misquoting Ed O'Neill on Jane Lynch's Emmy

1:06 PM PST 12/9/2010 by Lindsay Powers

Comments

Courtesy of Fox

"I absolutely never said, nor do I believe that Jane — whom I think is an enormous talent — was undeserving of the award," he says in a statement.

TV Guide Canada has apologized for misquoting Ed O'Neill saying he didn't think Jane Lynch deserved to win an Emmy.

"On December 6th 2010, TV Guide Canada published a story on Ed O’Neill’s comment regarding the 2010 Emmy Awards winner Jane Lynch (GLEE). Unfortunately, Mr. O’Neill’s comments were misquoted, which resulted in the erroneous interpretation of his comments," the magazine said in a statement.

O'Neill was quoted by TV Guide Canada earlier this week saying, "I love Jane, honestly I do. I’m dying to star in one of Christopher Guest’s movies alongside her, but I don’t think she should have gotten the Emmy for that part. [Sue Sylvester] is just a one-note character."

According to the transcript, he actually said, "I’m one of Jane Lynch’s biggest fans. I love Jane Lynch. She is a genius. But at the same time I said ‘Sofia could win’ because … and I’ve only seen Glee a couple of … I’ve only seen Glee once. But I thought Jane’s role is rather one-dimensional. It’s kind of strident. It’s always kind of the same. I’ve seen her be much better. So I thought ‘Sofia’s funnier,’ and I think she is in these two comparative roles. Anyway, Jane won. But I was hoping that Sofia would.”

Said O'Neill in a statement to Entertainment Weekly, "Last week I spoke to a group of journalists and one quoted me supposedly saying of Jane Lynch, ‘I don’t think she should have gotten the Emmy for that part.’ I never said those words and transcripts of the press conference attest to that fact. Of course I root for my dear friends Sofia Vergara and Julie Bowen (and all of my colleagues on our show) at Emmy time, but I absolutely never said, nor do I believe that Jane — whom I think is an enormous talent — was undeserving of the award. I reached out to her yesterday to ensure she knew I’d been misquoted but I wanted to clear this up publicly as well."