Scarlett Johansson said that all the hullabaloo over her so-called “e-mail relationship” with Barack Obama was causing her a lot of embarrassment.

“It seemed to me to be like a product of extreme sexism, and I kept thinking to myself, ‘God, if this was just, like, Kal Penn or George Clooney or any of the other (Obama) surrogates or supporters ... there wouldn't be (any) question about it. Nobody would even talk about it,” she said.

A self admitted supporter of Obama, Johansson told the Politico.com in June that she had been exchanging e-mails with the Democratic presidential hopeful. Obama later specified to the reporters that Johansson doesn’t have his personal e-mail address, and that his assistant forwarded one message from Johansson to which he replied.

“She sent one e-mail to Reggie, who forwarded it to me,” Obama said, referring to his personal assistant, Reggie Love. “I write, saying, ‘Thank you Scarlett for doing what you do,’ and suddenly we have this e-mail relationship.”  

“I was merely trying to express my delight at Obama's commitment to his campaign in every aspect and his interest and his support (in) his surrogates and his staff and his fellows, and how wonderful and refreshing that is. And it was manipulated into such an unfortunate media frenzy of kind of a nonstory,” the 23-year-old actress said Tuesday in an interview from Los Angeles, where she was present to promote her new Woody Allen film “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”