A tasteless Halloween send-up of the late singer Amy Winehouse has come back years later to haunt Neil Patrick Harris, prompting an apology from the actor.
Months after the singer’s death in 2011, Neil and David Burtka hosted a Halloween party and served a platter of meats with a fake corpse of Amy, topped by her bouffant hairstyle.
“The Corpse of Amy Winehouse,” read the sign. “Beef ribs pulled pork, chicken sausage in a spicy BBQ sauce.”
A photo of the buffet began recirculating this month, and the backlash was so intense that the How I Met Your Mother star responded.
“A photo recently resurfaced from a Halloween-themed party my husband and I hosted 11 years ago,” he told Entertainment Weekly in a statement published on Monday. “It was regrettable then, and it remains regrettable now. Amy Winehouse was a once-in-a-generation talent, and I’m sorry for any hurt this image caused.”
The original image was shared by party attendee Justin Mikita, now the husband of Modern Family actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Variety reported. It has resurfaced from time to time.
Neil Patrick Harris stars in the upcoming Netflix series “Uncoupled.”
Singer Amy Winehouse was 27 when she died of alcohol poisoning.