Johansson hits out at media over Obama 'email relationship'

Melbourne, Aug 6 : American actress Scarlett Johansson has hit out at the media coverage of her so-called "email relationship" with Barack Obama.

Johansson, who was left red faced about her "relationship" with John McCain's Democratic rival Obama, described the whole thing as a sexist issue.

"It seemed to me to be like a product of extreme sexism, and I kept thinking to myself, 'God, if this was just, like, Kal Penn or George Clooney or any of the other (Obama) surrogates or supporters ... there wouldn't be (any) question about it. Nobody would even talk about it,'' she said.

Johansson, a vocal supporter of Obama, told the website Politico.com in June that she and the Democratic presidential hopeful had been trading emails.

Obama later told reporters that Johansson doesn't have his personal email address, and that his assistant forwarded one message from Johansson to which he replied.

The actress had said on August 5 in an interview from Los Angeles, where she was promoting her new Woody Allen film Vicky Cristina Barcelon.

"I was merely trying to express my delight at Obama's commitment to his campaign in every aspect and his interest and his support (in) his surrogates and his staff and his fellows, and how wonderful and refreshing that is," she said.

"And it was manipulated into such an unfortunate media frenzy of kind of a non story,'' the 23-year-old actress added.

ANI