Billy Bob Thornton has a reason for keeping his political opinions to himself.
During a recent interview on the Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast, the Landman star and the host chatted about whether celebrities are qualified to use their public platforms to give advice.
“What we are experts in, just like the person that’s listening, is being human,” the America’s Got Talent judge said. “So if you could be open and share who you are, how you feel, how you cope, that’s definitely going to do something.”
Thorton agreed with Howie Mandel, saying that it’s “way more important than an actor or actress or musician telling people, like you said, who to vote for, because it’s like, I mean, some guy’s on the fence you know and it’s like, well, Dash Rip Rock said it on the Golden Globes, so [that’s who] I’m voting for.”
“I don’t know anything about politics,” the Oscar winner continued. “I have no idea. And the stuff that I believe about it, I don’t want to force it down somebody else’s throat ’cause I’m not an expert on that. What I am an expert on is having this shit.”
Mandel added that people shouldn’t blindly trust a public figure’s opinion because “they don’t know us” at the end of the day.
“The fact that people put so much gravitas [into] this group of people that pretends things,” he said. “Just because you played a doctor doesn’t mean you are a doctor, just because you played a hero doesn’t make you a hero. And the people that listen to you, no matter how much we talk, they don’t know us. It’s such a small circle of people that know you, know you enough to trust you in your opinion.”
Elsewhere during his conversation with Mandel, Thorton also opened up about having a very restricive diet due to food allergies to dairy, wheat, shellfish and certain meat because of his rare blood type.
“I have type AB negative blood, which is the rarest type in the world. It’s like less than 1 percent of the [U.S] population of the world has it,” the Sling Blade actor said. “It means you have less digestive enzymes. That’s one of the things that goes along with it.” Having less digestive enzymes means yours body cannot break down foods.
“I just grew up with a lot of allergies when I was a kid. I grew up in Arkansas and East Texas, and I ate everything,” Thorton added. “I just assumed everybody felt like shit after they ate. I didn’t know.”
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