Christian Bale offers on-radio apology for outburst

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Christian Bale

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On Friday (Feb. 6) Christian Bale began making his public mea culpas for his now legendary "Terminator Salvation" on-set outburst.

The "Dark Knight" and "Newsies" star called up the "Kevin & Bean" morning show on Los Angeles' KROQ to begin the process of apologizing for the verbally abusive incident with cinematographer Shane Hurbutt that began making its online rounds on Feb. 2.

The incident has spawned t-shirts, parody videos and techno remixes, as well as ongoing jokes on "Kevin & Bean," which at least partially explains why Bale used the radio show for his first public response to what he described as "a miserable week."

"The thing that I really want to stress is that I have no confusion whatsoever, I was out of order beyond belief," Bale emphasized. "I was way out of order. I acted like a punk. I regret that. There is nobody that has heard that tape that is hit harder by it than me. I make no excuses for it. It is inexcusable and I hope that that is absolutely clear."

Bale proceeded to make clear that he isn't comfortable with the idea of his status as a movie star and to say that in the moment, he got temporarily confused with the insanity of his John Conner character from "Terminator Salvation" and proper behavior on-set. He added that he's seen the movie and it looks great and he and Hurbutt made nice that very day.

Describing the incident as actorly enthusiasm gone awry rather than diva behavior, Bale told the radio hosts, "Please if anybody ever sees that I really am thinking that I'm better than anybody else, please stick a fork in my backside, turn me over, I will be done. That's not me."

Of course, Bale's desires went well beyond clearing his name or setting the record straight. He has a summer mega-blockbuster to promote and he made sure to urge the listeners that if they boycott "Terminator Salvation," they aren't just punishing him.

"A really important point I want to make is that hey, I know a lot of people are going to be thinking that they don't want to go see the movie because they think I'm some kind of prima donna or something. It ain't that. It's that sometimes maybe I care too much about the movie. But it wasn't just me, it was Shane the DP, the director, the other actors, every single crew member, everybody worked so hard on this movie. Please, I'm asking people, please, do not allow my one-time lapse in judgment, my incredibly embarrassing meltdown to overshadow this movie and to let all of those people's hard work go to waste. It is just too great a mythology for that to happen."

Since the servers for "Kevin & Bean" weren't prepared for all of the online attention to this clip, you can listen to TMZ's version of the audio.