Actress Katherine Heigl apologizes for 'inappropriate' Instagram post

Katherine Heigl is apologizing to fans for posting photos she took at a local cemetery.

"I noticed on my Instagram page, that the post I posted earlier was getting a lot of reaction and I realized, you guys are right. And that was not appropriate and was disrespectful and I've taken it down," she said Monday in a series of videos.

She said she was trying to make the moment "light-hearted."

In the photos, which have since been removed, the 39-year-old actress can be seen smiling and posing with certain adornments at a New York graveyard. People magazine reported that the site she was visiting was in Buffalo, New York, where some of Heigl's family is buried, including her brother, who died in 1986 at the age of 16.

"It's kind of a heavy thing to go and visit my loved-ones' graves and I decided to try and find some moments of levity and humor, and didn't realize how inappropriate I was being," she added.

Heigl told fans that sometimes she "doesn't think things through clearly enough."

"And thank you for forgiving me," she said. "Next time I will be more thoughtful about other people's feelings."

Heigl's husband Josh Kelley shared his own clips of the cemetery visit.

"Visiting our loved ones today and I ran into an old friend @katherineheigl caught this intimate moment," he wrote.

In the clips, Kelley is pretending to walk with someone who isn't there and Heigl can be heard laughing in the background.

On the work front, it's been a big year for Heigl. She will join the show "Suits," replacing Meghan Markle, who wed Prince Harry last month.