THG Asks: Should Kristen Stewart Have Issued a Public Apology?

Welcome to THG Asks, a feature in which our two celebrity gossip experts debate a topical issue in the entertainment world and readers decide on which side they fall.

Today, we turn our focus not just to Kristen Stewart and her shocking affair with Rupert Sanders, but to her unusual decision to issue a public apology regarding her actions.

We ponder both arguments and then THG Asks: Should the actress have taken this step?

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NO. By Free Britney

Kristen Stewart owes the public one thing and one thing only: the best performance she can give on screen. She's an actress. She didn't cause any personal or emotional harm to a single fan out there and, no offense, but if she did... that's your fault, not hers.

Kristen owes Robert Pattinson an apology. She owes Liberty Ross, the wife of Sanders, an apology. She owes the director's two kids an apology. These were people actually affected by her lapse in judgment.

But what Stewart does in the privacy of her own home - or in the front seat of a car, apparently - is between Stewart, the person she is doing it with and those connected to either or both. When it comes someone such as Kristen, who has clearly never craved fame, I choose to judge her solely on her acting chops and don't expect her to meet any sort of ethical standard in her personal life.

And I certainly don't need her to apologize to me when she fails to do so.

YES. By Hilton Hater

Hi, Free Britney. Welcome to 2012. Your argument may have made sense a couple decades ago, prior to tabloids and the paparazzi and the Internet and the blurring of lines between the public, the private and the professional.

But this isn't a debate over how thing should be. It's a debate over how things are.

And this is how they are in this age, especially for a star such as Stewart and a franchise such as The Twilight Saga: the movies are sold as much on Kristen and Rob's relationship as they are on vampires, werewolves and half-human babies. It's very easy to argue that Stewart's dalliance with Sanders will cost the studio millions, considering fans who simply won't be able to stand her on screen any longer.

Yes, Twihards take their Robsten very seriously and, whether Stewart wanted to play that game or not, she profited significantly from it. The investment of others in her relationship with Pattinson shot this actress on to the A-list. And she knew that. She may have disdained the spotlight, but she was aware that countless fans were staring at her in it and expecting her - at the very least - not to cheat with a married man nearly twice her age.

I mean, seriously. Are we really at the point where we're second guessing an apology? Isn't that what we ask for from those who make a mistake?

Your turn, readers. What do YOU think? Should Kristen Stewart have issued a public apology for cheating on Robert Pattinson?

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