upon his return to the us, gallo took a defiant stance, defending the film and finishing a new edit that clarified and tightened the storyline. a war of words then erupted between gallo and film critic roger ebert, with ebert writing that "the brown bunny" was the worst film in the history of cannes, and gallo retorting by calling ebert a "fat pig with the physique of a slave trader." paraphrasing a statement attributed to winston churchill, ebert responded with, "it is true that i am fat, but one day i will be thin, and he will still be the director of "the brown bunny"." gallo then claimed to have put a hex on ebert's colon, cursing the critic with cancer. in response, ebert quipped that watching a video of his colonoscopy had been more entertaining than watching "the brown bunny". gallo subsequently stated that the hex had actually been placed on ebert's prostate and that he had intended the comment to be a joke which was mistakenly taken seriously by a journalist. he also conceded to finding ebert's colonoscopy comment to be an amusing comeback.