Salma Hayek explains why she isn't offended by Donald Trump's immigration comments: 'Everyone has the right to be dumb'

The Mexico-born actress says she 'cannot be insulted by stupidity'

February 23, 2013: Actress Salma Hayek presents the award for best male lead at the 2013 Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, California. (Reuters)

Salma Hayek has defended Donald Trump’s freedom of speech by insisting that everyone has the right to be “dumb”.

Trump has exercised his rights by making a number of sweeping statements about undocumented Mexican immigrants (“rapists and criminals”), his political opponents (“losers"), and breastfeeding (“disgusting”), to name but a few, since launching his Republican bid.

Unsurprisingly, his provocative claims about immigration have sparked outrage, not least after his defiance in the wake of a public outcry and demands he apologise.

But Mexico-born Hayek was quick to put his comments into perspective, dismissing them as “a very simple tactic for self-promotion”.

”What’s sad is how easily people are manipulated,” she told the LA Times. “I’m not insulted because I cannot be insulted by stupidity.

"Everybody's entitled to have uninformed opinion. Everybody's entitled to be dumb. But I'm not dumb, so I see through the manipulation. We have something to learn from this.

"That is that the educated people or the people with great human values have to wake up, because they are under the illusion that most of this country is like them and sometimes they don't even go to vote."