Whoa...did Justin Theroux shade Brad Pitt with an expletive-laden Instagram?

File this one under political statements gone awry.

Justin Theroux may not have looked closely enough at an artistic image he shared on Instagram before he put it up.

In the post, the Girl on the Train star, 45, appeared to slam his 47-year-old wife Jennifer Aniston's ex-husband Brad Pitt, 52. The image in question was a photo Justin took of a mural by artist Nick Flatt.

The snap shows a woman biting her middle finger, framed by a list of people and things of which the photographer presumably isn't a fan. They all start with the word "f--k".

War, racism, and Facebook are just a few of the things there...along with "F--k Brad Pitt", mid-face in red on the right side. Yikes. 

When some of Justin's 305k followers noticed the "F--k Brad Pitt" bit, they went wild, writing in his comments "nice silent shade", "OMG best post ever", and more.

Once those comments started rolling in, Justin quickly cleared things up, adding to his caption: "#andNOthispostisNOT'shading'anyonebecauseimnotelevemyearsoldimeanseriously #okaymaybepickles" (Nick also blasted pickles in the mural).

As for why Justin shared the photo of the expletive-laden artwork in the first place, the actor seemed to be just expressing his feelings over the US presidential election. He also captioned the snap: "#currentelectionmood".

While we can't imagine Justin and Brad will every be besties, Justin has been publicly sympathetic to Brad and Angelina Jolie during their ongoing divorce war.

"As a child of divorce, all I can say is that's terrible news for those children," he told Business Insider. "That's all you can really say.

"It's boring to sort of comment on anything else," Justin added. "People are having a bad time. That's horrible."

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