Before appearing on The Voice Adam Levine seemed like a fairly likable guy. After his little “I hate this country” slipup on Tuesday’s episode, however, he has been bombarded with hate mail in the form of Twitter messages and other social networking jazz. But was it really that bad? Well, Levine really did make the comment, though it was an affected and probably not really true exclamation made off-camera. The mentor had just learned that two of his contestants were leaving and he clearly takes the whole coaching thing very seriously. So naturally, he said some things he maybe didn’t mean. But that one thing in particular attracted so much hate that he had to respond within hours. And respond Levine did – by posting the definitions of "joke," "humorless," "lighthearted" and "misunderstand." And by midday Wednesday he'd offered an explanation:

"I obviously love my country very much and my comments last night were made purely out of frustration," he said in a widely picked-up statement. "Being a part of 'The Voice,' I am passionately invested in my team and want to see my artists succeed. Last night's elimination of Judith and Sarah was confusing and downright emotional for me and my comments were made based on my personal dissatisfaction with the results. I am very connected to my artists and know they have long careers ahead, regardless of their outcome on the show."

Now that clearly isn’t an apology and it doesn’t really need to be. We hear that one of the perks of living in that beloved country is freedom of speech, which applies most to controversial cases like this. Still, it seems like the hype around the whole story is on its way to dying down. The strange thing is that it even got this much attention in the first place.

Adam Levine, Perfume Launch
Even if it was a case of anti-patriotism, that's still not illegal.

Adam Levine, Perfume Launch
Doesn't he look completely innocent?