You’d have thought that with a large chunk of the world already thinking he’s a bit of a rubbish director, Brett Ratner (X-Men: the Last Stand, Rush Hour) wouldn’t want anyone to think he’s a douche in real life as well, but it seems he’s spent much of the past week being just that. After apologising a couple of days ago on The Howard Stern Show for suggesting he’d slept with actress Olivia Munn (even he admitted he’d made her sound like a slut), he’s now in trouble for using homophobic slurs at a screening of his new movie, Tower Heist.

According to Reuters, the moderator of the Q&A asked him, “So you get this entire group of actors together – what was rehearsal like?”, to which Ratner answered, “Rehearsal? What’s that? Rehearsal’s for fags. Rehearsal. Not much. A lot of prep, preparation, complex action sequences, visual effects. Storyboards, animatics. The process was I made the actors stick to the script. And they wanted to, because the script was great.”

As with the Olivia Munn issue, it sounds like Ratner was trying to be cool and failed miserably. He’s since apoligised for using the word ‘fag’, releasing a statement that reads, “I apologize for any offense my remarks caused. It was a dumb way of expressing myself. Everyone who knows me knows that I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body. But as a storyteller I should have been much more thoughtful about the power of language and my choice of words.”

As Ratner is supposed to be producing the Oscars next year, his role there has been brought into question after his unwise comments. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences president, Tom Sherak, has spoken to Deadline, using words that sound as much a warning to Ratner as a condemnation of his words. Sherak says the director has been “inappropriate…dumb and insensitive,” and that “this won’t and can’t happen again.” He goes on to note that “the apology [Ratner] gave I truly believe comes from his heart. If I didn’t believe it, I would do something about it. This is about integrity and honoring the Academy Awards, but we all make mistakes and I believe he didn’t mean it.”