Woody Harrelson was involved in several altercations with a persistent paparazzo at La Guardia airport earlier this week. While I remembered Harrelson attacking the photographer twice in the longer video initially posted by TMZ (It’s since been removed and replaced by two shorter videos which don’t show the extent of the harassment inflicted on Harrelson), Liz Kelly at The Washington Post’s Celebritology says there were three incidents. She made a good point that I didn’t consider, though. Kelly snotes that from the perspective the photographer films the attacks we didn’t see what happened and can only take the guy’s word for it. The photographer is annoying to say the least. He follows Harrelson and repeatedly shouts his name and asks obnoxious questions even after Harrelson breaks his camera and scuffles with him. It’s clear the photographer is deliberately trying to provoke Harrelson, although this is a common tactic of paparazzi and Harrelson could have chosen to ignore it or alert the Port Authority police instead of resorting to violence.

In response to the incident, Harrelson has issued a creative statement that doesn’t deny his part in the incident while making his feelings about the photographer known. He says he had just wrapped a zombie movie and mistook the guy for a zombie:

The TMZ photographer filed a complaint with police claiming the actor damaged his camera and pushed him in the face at La Guardia Airport, according to an airport spokesman.

“We’re looking into this allegation and if it’s warranted, we’ll turn it over to the proper authorities,” said Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman Ron Marsico.

The photographer, who was not identified, captured the encounter on a small camera after his larger one was broken.

Harrelson, who is being sued by another TMZ photographer for an alleged assault in 2006, did not deny his involvement.

“I wrapped a movie called ‘Zombieland,’ in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then flew to New York, still very much in character,” Harrelson said in a statement issued Friday by his publicist.

“With my daughter at the airport I was startled by a paparazzo, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie,” he said.

[From CNN]

Many of you defended Harrelson’s actions by saying he was provoked. It’s true that he was provoked and that the paparazzo was in the wrong, but so was Harrelson. We don’t know exactly what he did to the photographer but the guy claimed that Harrelson punched him in the eye and we did see him break a camera. Celebrities have to deal with ridiculous paparazzi all the time and most of them chose to ignore it. I’m not saying this type of harassment is justified, but neither is violence. The guy certainly acted like a zombie by not giving up once he was attacked. Those zombies just keep on going until they get to the brains.

Woody Harrelson is shown at the Semi-Pro premiere on 2/16/08. Credit: PRPhotos