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Jennifer Aniston’s been in the news quite a lot lately promoting her new movie “The Switch”, but amidst all the promotion, she’s created quite the controversy around what she says. The latest — using the “R-word.”

 
On a recent trip to the set of “Live with Regis and Kelly”, Aniston used the term jokingly against herself.
 
ANISTON: “And we had all these fun wigs and you know, that funny girl and so it was just like, it was just fun.”

PHILBIN: “You played dress-up!”

ANISTON: “I play dress-up, I do it for a living like a retard.”
 
That comment has created a lot of backlash against the actress. Showbiz Tonight talks about what people are saying, including a spokesperson for the Special Olympics.
 
“Almost immediately after Aniston dropped her 'R-bomb' the reaction was fierce. Special Olympics blasted Aniston telling Showbiz Tonight ‘Special Olympics is always disappointed when the R-word is used, especially by someone who is influential to society. The pervasive use of the R-word, even in an off the cuff self-deprecating manner, dehumanizes people with intellectual disabilities and perpetuates painful stereotypes that are a great source of suffering and negative stigma.”
 
On WPRI’s “The Rhode Show”, anchors question the reaction of the audience as well.
 
“Why are they laughing, like why is everyone giggling about that?”

“Well you know I think that there is a kind of natural inclination when you’re sitting at a show and you’re watching someone who you admire to kind of give that to them, and then think oh you know that wasn’t so tasteful.”

But ABC News points out that the audience and the hosts, including Regis Philbin, didn’t negatively respond and other influential people have said similar things in the past.
 
“You know the audience didn’t respond, Regis and the co-host they didn’t respond, but people, they are responding. Advocacy groups are saying it was extraordinarily offensive and inappropriate.”

“It kind of reminds me about what President Barack Obama said about special Olympics when he was making fun of his own bowling.”

“We’ve heard Rush Limbaugh say it, we’ve heard Howard Stern say it, people say it a lot, but she is under a lot of criticism right now.”

So what do you think? Harmless slip of the tongue? Or did she cross the line? 

WRITER: Alyssa Caverley