David Hasselhoff has leapt to the defence of Jason Akermanis following his recent controversies.
Akermanis was rumoured to have been dropped from Celebrity Apprentice after threatening the show's boss Mark Bouris and teammates Nathan Joliffe and Lauryn Eagle on Twitter. He also caused outrage for describing late sports star Jim Stynes as "cruel".
Hasselhoff, who also took part in this year's Celebrity Apprentice, has hit back at Akermanis's critics, describing his friend as a "true gentleman" who was fun to work with.
The Baywatch actor told the Herald Sun: "Sometimes as celebrities we are set up to say something and the press take it in a certain way. It happened to me just three weeks ago."
Akermanis said that he was grateful to Hasselhoff for trying to defend him, but said that he hopes people will "see the real man" when they watch Celebrity Apprentice.
He added: "I've been the victim of character assassination for the past 10 years, so a lot of people have pretty low expectations of me. I don't think I abused any other contestants individually by text, but I probably said some things on Twitter that I regret."
Akermanis has since stopped posting on the microblogging site.
