Jim Carrey: comedian, actor, artist, and — in the eyes of Benito Mussolini’s granddaughter — "bastard."
Carrey, the rubber-faced comic famous for low-brow fare like “Dumb and Dumber” and “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” as well as critically acclaimed movies like “Man on the Moon,” found himself on the receiving end of a Twitter tirade from Alessandra Mussolini.
Why?
Carrey posted his drawing of the Italian dictator and his mistress Clara Petacci being hanged upside down in a Milanese square after they were executed in 1945.
“If you’re wondering what fascism leads to, just ask Benito Mussolini and his mistress Claretta,” Carrey wrote in a tweet posted Saturday.
Mussolini, a member of the European Parliament and former Playboy cover model, fired back on Sunday.
“You are a bastard,” she tweeted.
Several Carrey followers quickly came to the defense of the performer, who of late has emerged as a harsh critic of President Donald Trump. When one told the outraged Mussolini that his grandfather “fought to liberate Europe from people like your grandfather,” she replied, “Do you want applause?"
Mussolini, however, continued to attack Carrey on Twitter by suggesting he draw inspiration from the dark pages of American history by depicting mushroom clouds, African-Americans being tied to whipping posts, Rosa Parks and "whites only" signs on buses.
Carrey did not take the bait (or return a tweet from NBC News seeking comment). But by Monday afternoon over 100,000 people had liked Carrey’s picture.
Meanwhile dozens of pro-Carrey people had posted on Mussolini’s thread photographs of U.S. soldiers who fought the Fascist forces in Italy, including one who said his grandfather witnessed the dictator’s body being strung up and said the photos in his family's possession “look A LOT like Jim’s illustration here.”
Mussolini, 56, is a far right politician who has long defended her grandfather, a brutal dictator known as “Il Duce” (the leader), who turned Italy into a police state and disastrously allied his country with Nazi Germany during World War II.
In the end, with Allied forces after him, Mussolini and his mistress were caught by Italian partisans while trying to flee to Switzerland. They were executed by firing squad and their bodies were then trucked to Milan where they were hung upside down from the roof of a gas station.
Jeering crowds then pelted the corpses with stones.
Mussolini also did not respond to a message from NBC News seeking comment. On her Twitter page, however, she frequently retweets Trump Tweets, one as recently as Sunday.