Ever since making a name for himself on the successful hit comedy Superbad, Jonah Hill has been able to stay popular and relevant without ever being the subject of a tabloid or gossip column scandal. Unfortunately, that is about to change, as the 30-year-old actor is starting to receive criticism from fans and the media alike for calling a paparazzo a homophobic slur over the weekend.

While walking with a friend in the Larchmont Village area of Los Angeles over the weekend, a group of videographers followed Hill around and tried to get a reaction out of him. Eventually, footage obtained by TMZ reveals that Hill lashed out at one of the cameramen who had been mocking him for his floral shorts with “Suck my d—k, you f—-t.”

This remark is especially surprising considering the 22 Jump Street star grew up with gay family members and plans to stand at his gay best friend’s wedding.

On Tuesday, Hill used his appearance on “The Howard Stern Show” to apologize for his remark.

“This is a heartbreaking situation for me,” said Hill. “From the day I was born and publicly, I’ve been a gay rights activist.”

“Not excusing what I said in any way, this person had been following me around all day. Had been saying hurtful things about my family, really hurtful thing about me personally, and I played into exactly what he wanted and lost my cool. And in that moment I said a disgusting word that does not at all reflect how I feel about any group of people. I am not at all defending my choice of words, but I am happy to be the poster boy for thinking about what you say and how those words — even if you don’t intend them in how they mean — they are rooted in hate and that’s … and I shouldn’t have said that,” Hill added.

While Hill admits that he is skilled at making movies, this weekend’s incident proved to him that he still isn’t great at being a famous public figure.

“If you call me ugly, if you call family members of mine drug addicts and maniacs, I am eventually going to lose my cool. Now what I said in that moment was disgusting and a hurtful term, but I in no way intended it as a derogatory term towards anybody in the LGBT community.”

Hill went on to say that he believes he should have tried to ignore the paparazzo or merely used a different F-word to get him to back off.

“I’m happy to take the heat for using this disgusting word. What I won’t allow is for anyone — it would break my heart to think that anyone would think, especially with all the work that I’ve done and all the loved ones that I have — that I would be against anyone for their sexuality. That’s absurd to me. So it’s been a heartbreaking morning.”