Actress Shirley MacLaine has sparked outrage by claiming in her new memoir that the six million Jews and others who died in the Holocaust were "balancing their karma" by paying for sins committed in their previous lives.
The 80-year-old actress wrote "What if most Holocaust victims were balancing their karma from ages before, when they were Roman soldiers putting Christians to death, the Crusaders who murdered millions in the name of Christianity, soldiers with Hannibal, or those who stormed across the Near East with Alexander?" the Mirror reported.
The 'Downton Abbey' star further wrote in memoir 'What If...' that the energy of killing is endless and will be experienced by the killer and the killee.
One Twitter user wrote "Shirley MacLaine, 80, suggests Holocaust victims died for sins in their past lives. MacLaine shows no fool like an old and offensive one," while another added "Outrageous delusion."
A spokesperson for anti-semitic campaigners Community Security Trust said that the first impressions are that these comments will offend and bemuse many Jews and many other people too.
MacLaine also claimed that Professor Stephen Hawking had brought his crippling condition on himself, in order to "free his mind" and focus solely on his work.
She wrote "What if he inadvertently chose to set an example of himself to show the rest of us that cosmic travel and universal understanding are available, regardless of one's physical condition or circumstance?"
MacLaine noted that if Jesus chose to die in a state of martyrdom, then Hawking could just as readily have chosen to live in a dual state of being: visibly physical weakness and unseen knowledge and power, adding "What if all reality is an illusion?"
A spokesman for Disability Rights UK said that MacLaine obviously has some very confused ideas that a lot of disabled people will be baffled by and it's completely wrong to say people choose their disabilities, especially Hawking, who has a genetic condition.
