NEW YORK, United States — The first male spokesperson for CoverGirl cosmetics is apologising for saying he was scared to be travelling to Africa because he was afraid he'd get the Ebola virus.

Seventeen-year-old James Charles tweeted on the eve of a school trip to South Africa: "I can't believe we're going to Africa today omg what if we get Ebola?"

CoverGirl called Charles' Thursday tweet "inappropriate" and not representative of the brand.

Charles, who has 182,000 followers on Twitter, was criticised and apologised in an expletive-filled statement. "It was never my intent to offend anyone," he wrote. "I feel awful for posting what I said."

Charles' statement didn't put the controversy completely to rest because he described Africa as a country. He later explained he made that mistake because he was hurrying to apologise.