The mayor of a small Alabama town said Thursday he meant no disrespect to Gov. Kay Ivey after posting a sexually suggestive comment on Facebook about a picture he took with the governor.

Kenneth Nail, mayor of the Cullman County town of Hanceville, said his comment was meant as "just a little funny" in responding to a comment by a man Nail described as "an old friend."

The photo, which Nail posted on Facebook just after noon on Wednesday, has the mayor standing next to Ivey in a group shot in the capitol in Montgomery. In the photo, Nail is standing so that his right hand and arm is obscured behind Ivey.

In the comments on the Facebook post, a poster asked, "Where is your right hand"

Nail responds, "She did have a smile on her face, didn't she LOL"

Three commentors responded to Nail's comment with a laughing emoji.

The comment appears to now have been deleted.

"It was one friend to another, just a little funny," Nail said in an interview Thursday with AL.com. "I didn't say where my hand was or anything else."

Nail was elected to a third term as Hanceville's mayor last year. In his Facebook post, he said he met with Ivey and members of the Alabama legislature regarding Alabama Highway 91 in Hanceville.

Nail downplayed the issue of his Facebook comment as a non-story.

"I would never disrespect our governor. I love her to death," he said. "I would never disrespect anybody. That was an old friend of mine who worked at the Cullman police department with me. He said a little something and I said, 'Well, she did have a smile on her face' and just left it at that.

"Your imagination can be whatever it is. I never said I was touching her and I wouldn't touch her. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't disrespect the governor or anything like that. That was it."