Actor Sean Penn and director Oliver Stone each released statements Tuesday to pay tribute to deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
The two Oscar winners were supporters of Chavez, who died at 58 Tuesday after a two-year battle with cancer. In December, Penn attended a candlelight vigil held in Bolivia for the ailing Chavez. Stone’s 2009 documentary South of the Border was viewed by many as a hagiography to Chavez.
Penn and Stone released their statements to the Hollywood Reporter. According to the Reporter, both Penn and Stone met the socialist leader in 2007.
“Today the people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had. And poor people around the world lost a champion,” Penn said in his statement. “I lost a friend I was blessed to have. My thoughts are with the family of President Chavez and the people of Venezuela.”
Stone said Chavez had finally found a “peace long earned.”
”I mourn a great hero to the majority of his people and those who struggle throughout the world for a place,” Stone’s statement read. “Hated by the entrenched classes, Hugo Chavez will live forever in history.”
