LOS ANGELES - WILL Smith is angry over celebrity gossip website articles that he said misinterpreted a recent remark he made in a Scottish newspaper about Adolf Hitler.

In a story published on Saturday in the Daily Record, Smith was quoted saying: 'Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.'

The quote was preceded by the writer's observation: 'Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good.'

Over the weekend, dozens of celebrity gossip Web sites posted articles about the comment, many saying that Smith believed that Hitler was a 'good' person.

'It is an awful and disgusting lie,' Smith said in a statement on Monday provided by his publicist. 'It speaks to the dangerous power of an ignorant person with a pen. I am incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such ludicrous misinterpretation.'

'Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet,' read the statement. -- AP