The New Jersey Transit rider who captured the now-viral video of a fellow commuter brazenly shaving aboard a train last week claims he never intended to hurt the man’s feelings.
“I never intended any harm by taking or posting this video,” Pete Bentivegna tweeted Tuesday, adding, “There has been a lot of licensing interest and all proceeds will be going to support Anthony Torres and his family.”
In the short clip taken by Bentivegna, Torres – seated on a NJ Transit car — can be seen lathering up his face with shaving cream and dragging a razor across his face.
Torres was also seen tossing the excess shaving cream onto the floor on the train out of Manhattan.
After Bentivegna posted the video to Twitter, Torres was widely mocked online.
Another clip posted by Bentivegna showed Torres with a beer in his hand.
Bentivegna’s damage control tweet earned him some backlash.
“Should have thought about the harm it would cause before you made fun of him for the world to see. You made assumptions, not knowing the situation. This is what’s wrong with the world. It was clearly mean spirited and that’s pathetic,” Twitter user @MoonbeamRainGo said in response to Bentivegna.
Torres claimed in a report published Tuesday that he was simply trying to clean himself up after spending days in a homeless shelter.
“My life is all screwed up. That’s the reason I was shaving on the train,” the 56-year-old told the Associated Press.
Torres noted that he left the shelter before getting the opportunity to shower and that he wanted to appear “presentable.”
“I don’t want to say that I’m homeless, let everybody know,” he said. “That’s why I was shaving.”
Torres said he had no clue that he was being filmed on the train and was hurt to see the offensive comments being made about him.
“I never thought it would go viral, people making fun of me,” he said. “Maybe people will have more feeling knowing what [I’ve] been through.”
Torres is now staying with his brother Thomas, 57, in Atco, NJ.
Meanwhile, a GoFundMe account for Torres started by a Washington, D.C. man this week has raised more than $28,500 as of Wednesday morning.
The fundraiser – with a goal of $35,000 – is dubbed the “Anthony Torres Assistance Fund.”
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