Fans rage as Jeremy Renner tries to defend 'slut' comment

Actor Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson's character Black Widow. Photo / AFP, Supplied

Hawkeye should know when to put the bow and arrow away.

Jeremy Renner, who plays the sharp shooter in The Avengers: Age of Ultron, has tried to defend a comment he made in a recent interview where he called his co-star Scarlett Johansson's character Black Widow a "slut".

Fans were understandably maddened by the comment and Renner apologised shortly afterwards in a statement.

But now the actor has back-tracked and brushed off the comment, and unlike Hawkeye's arrows in the Marvel blockbuster, he may have missed the mark and made things worse.

"It was a joke, off-colour or whatever," Renner said on US talk show Conan.

"We were talking about a fictional character and fictional behaviour.

"But if you slept with four of the six Avengers, no matter how much fun you had, you'd be a slut. I'm just saying."

The controversy began in April when Renner and co-star Chris Evans joked about Black Widow's love life in an interview with Digital Spy.

Unsurprisingly Renner's latest comments have not gone down well with fans.

"Dear Jeremy Renner, Black Widow is a fictional character and she cannot hear you. Every woman in the world is a real person and THEY CAN," Sunil Patel wrote on Twitter.

"The more Jeremy Renner talks about the Black Widow, the less of a likable human being he becomes," Sam tweeted.

But there were some who came to his defence.

"The people who are upset wtih Jeremy Renner's comments about Black Widow have no reason to get offended. It did no harm and had no intention to," Hayley tweeted.

- AAP