A Saturday Night Live writer has been suspended indefinitely after a joke on Twitter about U.S. President Donald Trump’s 10-year-old son Barron.

A person familiar with the situation confirmed to the Star on Monday that SNL writer Katie Rich was suspended indefinitely by NBC, immediately after she tweeted on Friday that Barron would be America’s first “homeschool shooter.”

The tweet was quickly deleted and Rich’s Twitter account was reset, and her name was reportedly missing from the credits of last weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live. The only tweet now on Rich’s account is an apology about the joke.

“I sincerely apologize for the insensitive tweet. I deeply regret my actions and offensive words. It was inexcusable and I’m so sorry,” Rich tweeted on Monday afternoon.

The now-deleted joke drew criticism from media outlets and social media outlets across the world.

Barron Trump was widely seen at Friday’s inauguration in Washington, D.C. However, even Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of Trump’s former presidential opponent Hillary Clinton, was quick to defend the boy from any attacks that came with the spotlight.

“Barron Trump deserves the chance every child does — to be a kid,” Chelsea wrote on Facebook, garnering over 100,000 reactions.

Barron is the first young boy in the White House since John F. Kennedy’s presidency, although much of his first year will be spent going to school in New York City.

SNL has drawn a lot of criticism from Donald Trump himself throughout the presidential campaign, but this is the first time that their jokes on Trump have drawn widespread outrage from people on both sides of the political spectrum.

Multiple petitions demanding that NBC fire Katie Rich have surfaced, including one that had 80,000 signatures as of Monday afternoon.

Though Rich was not on the credits for last Saturday’s episode, hosted by Aziz Ansari, it did not lack for satirical pokes at Trump, notably in Ansari’s opening monologue, in which he joked that Trump made him wistful for a past president he disliked at the time: “What the hell has happened? I’m sitting here wistfully watching old George W. Bush speeches?”

The episode ended with two cast members singing “To Sir With Love” to a projected image of Barack Obama.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Read more about: