James Franco Takes Dig at Oscar Writer on Twitter

By Kelly Fisher Posted Mar 22nd 2011 10:05AM

It's no secret that James Franco's hosting job wasn't really up to par. Critics slammed his barely there attitude and general awkwardness during the telecast. But when Oscar joke writer Bruce Vilanch opened up to New York magazine's Vulture blog about Franco's flop, the actor took to Twitter to return a dig at Vilanch.

"He has so many balls in the air, he didn't get to town till Thursday before the show on Sunday," Vilanch told Vulture about Franco's busy schedule. "I don't think he realized how big a deal it is to do it until he was actually confronted with it. I think he thought he would kind of ... I don't know what he thought."

Vilanch, along with pretty much everyone else watching the show, thought it was all some kind of act.

"I thought maybe it was a performance-art prank, and then I realized he sincerely wanted to do it," Vilanch said. "The only people who know how to host those shows are people who get up onstage every night and say, 'Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. A funny thing happened... ' Or people like Bette [Midler] who get up and sing all night and tell stories."

Franco apparently didn't take Vilanch's comments too well, and he tweeted a graffiti-covered picture of himself with Vilanch backstage at the Oscars.

"James f**ked up the Oscars. Trust me, I know comedy," Franco scribbled on the photo, in dialogue bubbles coming from Vilanch's mouth. "I mean, come on, I write for Bette Midler!"

Franco has since deleted the tweet and photo, but Vulture was lucky enough to grab it before he took it down.

Watch POP-arazzi, our weekly video roundup of the latest craziness in pop culture: