Chris Pine Clears Up #SpitGate Once and for All: ‘Harry Did Not Spit on Me’

In what may finally be the last gasp of last year’s rollercoaster ride of a press tour for Don’t Worry Darling, Chris Pine has finally explained what happened when Harry Styles apparently didn’t actually spit on him at the Venice Film Festival.

Sure, a rep for Pine rebuffed #SpitGate at the time, as did Styles and Don’t Worry Darling director Olivia Wilde. But, let’s be honest, none of that really counts. We needed to hear the full story from the man at the center of it all, the only person who could confirm Styles’ spittle did not splatter upon his stylish brown shoes. 

Pine shared his side of the story in a new video with Esquire, where the actor answered a handful of questions about his career. When asked the most pressing question, Pine said flatly: “Harry did not spit on me. Harry’s a very, very kind guy.”

Pine even offered a glimpse at how the Hollywood PR machine kicks into gear during such moments of crisis. He recalled how his publicist frantically woke him during the flight back from the Venice Film Festival to tell him they needed to craft a message about what happened immediately. Pine initially had no idea what his publicist was talking about, and when he saw the infamous video, he acknowledged, “It does look, indeed, like Harry is spitting on me.”

What Styles did do, Pine said, was he leaned down and said, “It’s just words, isn’t it.” Pine then explained: “We had this little joke, because we’re all jet-lagged, we’re all trying to answer these questions, and sometimes when you’re doing these press things, your brain goes a bit befuddled and you start speaking gibberish. So we had a joke, ‘It’s just words, man.’”

On that note, we’d like to thank Pine for, once and for all, clearing up one of the most important pop culture mysteries in recent memory. And for inadvertently giving a little behind-the-scenes context to Styles’ iconic quote at a Venice press conference, “You know, my favorite thing about the movie is, like, it feels like a movie. It feels like a real, like, you know, ‘go to the theater’ film movie.”