The Sorriest People of 2014

U2
"Sorry" isn't the hardest word when it's the only one left to say.

"Sorry" isn't the hardest word when it's the only one left to say. This year saw a great many high-profile apologies for things silly and serious. Here are a few of them.

Global supergroup U2 found out the hard way that arranging for half a billion people to receive free music could actually tick off some of the recipients. In September the group released its latest album, the Grammy-nominated "Songs of Innocence," on Apple's iTunes, at a cost of zero dollars to subscribers, who found the album waiting for them with their next login. And there was the rub. The album was an automatic download, and therefore a heinous violation of personal space, in the eyes of some vocal users. ("What I’ve learned from observing this outrage is apparently we only want music for free if it’s illegal," late-night host Jimmy Kimmel wryly noted.)

The group's lead singer, Bono, said it was a beautiful idea that went awry. "Oops!" he told fans in a Q&A video. He called the automatic delivery "really rude," adding that "I had this beautiful idea, but (we) got carried away with ourselves."

Gisela Schober/Getty Images

Amy Pascal

Late this year, Sony Corp. was hacked, reportedly for its backing of the film, "The Interview," a comedy that was critical of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Leaked emails from the hack painted some major players in the entertainment industry in a not very flattering light.

Among them was Sony Co-Chairman Amy Pascal, who apologized for correspondence in which she said unflattering things about actor Leonardo DiCaprio while a friend of hers made disparaging remarks about Angelina Jolie. She also was sorry for leaked emails in which she and a producer discussed the kinds of movies President Obama might like, naming primarily movies featuring African American central characters.

Pascal also reportedly sent a preemptive apology to Weinstein Co. Chairman Harvey Weinstein, shown above with Pascal before the more recent unpleasantness.

Meanwhile, threats of violence against theatergoers who might attend screenings of "The Interview" initially caused Sony to shelve the film entirely, canceling its release and essentially shoving it in a drawer. But in the end the film was released online (legally and illegally) and in about 300 theaters.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Cho Hyun-ah

Cho Hyun-ah, the daughter of Korean Air chairman Cho Yang-ho, and vice president in charge of Korean Air’s in-flight services and hotel business, took to the microphones to apologize for forcing a Korean Air flight preparing to fly from New York to Seoul to return to the terminal when she was served unasked-for macadamia nuts that, offense number two, were in a bag instead of a bowl. She also had a crew member removed from the flight. The story hit news outlets far and wide, and suddenly the old ad slogan "sometimes you feel like a nut; sometimes you don't" was back in play.

In addition to a public round of "sorry," Hyun-ah visited the homes of two flight attendants at whom she fumed over the nuts. The flight attendants were not home, so she left a note of apology with each.

Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

Jason Biggs

We could spend a whole day on the dangerous things that can happen when celebrities collide with Twitter. It only takes 140 characters to send a career off to image rehab following a sold-out apology tour.

Actor Jason Biggs was reminded that there are just some lines you don't cross. When Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine this summer, marking the second tragic airliner loss for the company in just a few months (the company's Flight 370 vanished in March and has still not been found), Biggs decided it was appropriate to tweet: "Anyone wanna buy my Malaysian Airlines frequent flier miles?" Not surprisingly, Twitter sent its wrath his way. Biggs at first kept digging, trying to play the "calm down" card. Later, though, he deleted his tweets on the topic and instead apologized.

Michael Tran/FilmMagic

Nancy Snyderman

NBC News Medical Reporter Nancy Snyderman apologized in October for violating her Ebola quarantine period, when she was spotted going out for takeout food while she was supposed to have been laying low, alone. Snyderman and her crew were under quarantine after her freelance camera operator contracted Ebola while the news team was covering the outbreak in Liberia. (The camera operator, Ashoka Mukpo, has since recovered.)

Jemal Countess/WireImage

Jon Stewart

"Daily Show" host Jon Stewart felt he had some splainin' to do after he remarked in an interview on the day of the 2014 midterm elections that he hadn't voted. "No, I just moved. I don't even know where my thing is now," he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

After word spread of his shirking of civic duty, Stewart said later that day, on his own program, that he was being "flip" with the comment and that he had voted.

Desiree Navarro/WireImage

Greenpeace

Greenpeace apologized after a group of its activists walked across the famed Nazca Lines World Heritage Site in Peru in order to place on the ground a message about renewable energy. The pronouncement was meant to be read from the air -- just like the lines themselves.

Here, members of the National Culture Institute of Peru evaluate the damage caused by the activists.

The Nazca lines are restricted from public trespass, to help maintain the delicate drawings of animals etched into the ground some 1,500 years ago for a purpose yet unknown but not likely related to renewable energy.

MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP/Getty Images

AMC Networks

( SPOILER AHEAD , fair warning. This slide about a spoiler contains a spoiler. If you're all caught up on The Walking Dead, then read on, but if not, and if a spoiler will ruin your life, you might want to skip to the next slide.)

AMC Networks -- not a flesh-and-blood person, true, but corporations have legal personhood, so the TV net can join our "sorry people" collection -- pressed the apology button after it accidentally revealed to the West Coast, in a premature Facebook posting, that a fan-favorite cast member from "The Walking Dead" had been killed in that evening's episode.

It turned out the network posted "RIP Beth" on Facebook, with a picture of that character being carried out of a building by another fan favorite, Darryl. The trouble was, the post went up before the show had aired on the west coast. Outrage ensued.

"We heard your feedback to last night's post, and we’re sorry," the network said in a statement the next day.

AMC

Travis Kalanick

Uber CEO and founder Travis Kalanick saw his company in hot water over comments another company executive made, hypothetically, about spending money to dig up dirt on journalists who were critical of his car-service company.

Kalanick apologized on behalf of his company in a series of tweets.

Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch

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