Woody Harrelson roughed up a TMZ photographer at La Guardia airport the other day, but it was okay because no one likes TMZ photographers and because he had a really good excuse.

Harrelson defended his clash with a photographer at a New York airport Wednesday night as a case of mistaken identity — he says he mistook the cameraman for a zombie.

“I wrapped a movie called ‘Zombieland,’ in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then flew to New York, still very much in character,” Harrelson said in a statement issued Friday by his publicist.  “With my daughter at the airport I was startled by a paparazzo, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie,” he said. [CNN] [pointless annoying boring video of the "attack" here]

This would be a funnier story if Harrelson wasn’t still being sued for $2.5 million dollars by some other TMZ asswipe over a similar incident in 2006 (Key quote: The photographer then flagged down an LAPD patrol car and told the two officers inside, “Hey bro, I just got assaulted by Woody Harrelson. He choked me out right now.”). As my lack of pants would indicate, I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure you can’t claim an assault was very serious if you continue chasing your alleged assailant down the street yelling “this is assault!”  No, it’s not.  If anything, it’s a one-sided game of grabass.  In fact if I were Harrelson’s lawyer, I would’ve advised him to use the “why are you hitting yourself?” defense.