Ricky Gervais made an ill-advised joke on Twitter that suggested that the celebrities whose pictures leaked were to blame for the hacking incident. After deleting the offending tweet, Gervais has claimed he believes that the hackers are the ones truly to blame.

Ricky Gervais On Celeb Nudes Leak

On Monday, Gervais quipped, “Celebrities, make it harder for hackers to get nude pics of you from your computer by not putting nude pics of yourself on your computer."

Not long after the tweet went up, the comedian was met with a surge of backlash. His tweet was not taken as a joke, rather as a condemnation of the young women – including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton – who had taken racy pictures of themselves, instead of the person who'd stole the personal pictures from them.

In response to the criticism, Gervais promptly removed the tweet from his timeline and attempted to explain that the “blame” was merely in the context of a joke and not indicative of his true feelings.

Making a joke about a thing doesn't mean you condone that thing.

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) September 1, 2014

Of course the hackers are 100% to blame but you can still makes jokes about it. Jokes don't portray your true serious feelings on a subject

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) September 1, 2014

It's more important to spend your energy trying to stop actual bad things than to run around trying to stop jokes about bad things.

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) September 1, 2014

On Tuesday, Gervais, apparently having grown tired of trying to defend himself, turned back to humor, posting a picture of a “comedian in hot water.”

"Comedian in hot water" pic.twitter.com/BlohggXe6l

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) September 2, 2014