Will Smith has expressed anger over articles on several celebrity gossip websites that he claims misinterpreted a remark he made in a Scottish newspaper about Adolf Hitler.

In a story published in Daily Record, Will was quoted as saying: “Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today’. I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good’.”

The quote was preceded by the writer’s observation: “Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good.”

Over the weekend, dozens of celebrity gossip websites posted articles about the comment, most saying that Will believed that Hitler was a “good” person.

Will says in a statement:

“It is an awful and disgusting lie. It speaks to the dangerous power of an ignorant person with a pen. I am incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such ludicrous misinterpretation.”

“Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet.”