A gym owner took photos of women’s butts as they worked out, and his reaction made it even worse

WLOS screenshot, 3HlWa/Imgur

A North Carolina gym owner is taking several steps back after a social media controversy.

Videos by Rare

WLOS reports that the issue began when Blue Ridge Cross Fit owner Tom Tomlo posted videos of women exercising to his Instagram story. The women were working out in the Fletcher, N.C., gym while Tomlo filmed. In some parts of the video, Tomlo gave special attention to the women’s butts. He also added peach emojis and words like “Damn” and “Hump Day” to the videos.

A member of the gym took issue with the Instagram story and posted about it on the gym’s Facebook page. Screenshots of the post were shared on Imgur.

Imgur/3HlWa

Tomlo responded to the complaint by writing a rude and profane Facebook post.

Imgur/3HlWa

Since the response went up, the gym has been reviewed negatively on Facebook. Several people criticized Tomlo not for his video, but for the way he chose to respond to the complaints.

He has since expressed regret for the optics of the social media posts.

“I feel horrible that people would feel that I would look at a woman that way and do something that would be purposefully demeaning of her,” he said.

[protected-iframe id=”7e1582413395957e1dc131242e9e5009-46934866-88347336″ info=”http://wlos.com/resources/embeds/vod.html?externalId=11d0c25538b640489301bbed6f098603&thumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fstgec-ausc.uplynk.com%2F80C078%2Fausc%2Fslices%2F11d%2F34d28c6069b34f1d96307c80809697d7%2F11d0c25538b640489301bbed6f098603%2Fposter_342e174c0f814f5ea0a03f7367017a87.jpg&client=googima&zone=%2F4756%2FWLOS%2FWeb%2Fnews%2Flocal&adStorySlug=gym-owner-apologizes-after-controversial-instagram-video” width=”640″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″]

Tomlo asserted that the women in the video were aware that it was being taken and posted to social media. The women have yet to confirm whether or not that was the case.

RELATED: A Chick-fil-A is responding after a manager asked a breastfeeding mother to leave

What do you think?

Despite Republican objections, Senator Durbin stands by his account of the President’s “s***hole countries” remark

This man wanted to give the homeless shelter in his home, but city government won’t let him