FacebookThis is no laughing matter for Ricky Gervais.
The funnyman took a very serious turn when he came across something that truly disturbed him—a controversial photo of hunter Rebecca Francis posing next to her kill.
To be more specific, it's a picture of Rebecca Francis smiling next to the corpse of a giraffe that she killed. Yeah, that didn't sit well with a lot of people, who began targeting the hunter and even sending death threats. Gervais didn't go that far, of course, but he did make it very clear that what she did was not OK with him.
The 53-year-old comedian reposted the picture on Facebook and wrote, "What must've happened to you in your life to make you want to kill a beautiful animal and then lie next to it smiling?"
While Francis has not responded to Gervais' comment, she did speak out in response to critics and defended her act by saying she was honoring the life of a dying giraffe.
"When I was in Africa five years ago I was of the mindset that I would never shoot a giraffe. I was approached toward the end of my hunt with a unique circumstance. They showed me this beautiful old bull giraffe that was wandering all alone. He had been kicked out of the herd by a younger and stronger bull. He was past his breeding years and very close to death," she says, according to HuntingLife.com.
"They asked me if I would preserve this giraffe by providing all the locals with food and other means of survival. He was inevitably going to die soon and he could either be wasted or utilized by the local people. I chose to honor his life by providing others with his uses and I do not regret it for one second. Once he was down there were people waiting to take his meat. They also took his tail to make jewelry, his bones to make other things, and did not waste a single part of him."
She concludes, "I am grateful to be a part of something so good."