Chris Pine laughs off Harry Styles ‘spitgate’ rumours at the Don’t Worry Darling premiere: ‘I think Harry leaned…’

The Star Trek actor shared that he was aware of the rumours and the internet frenzy that had broken out after the premiere of the film, and shared how he felt it overshadowed the film itself. “If I feel badly, it’s because the vitriol that the movie got was absolutely out of proportion with what was onscreen. Venice was normal things getting swept up in a narrative that people wanted to make, compounded by the metastasizing that can happen in the Twitter-sphere. It was ridiculous,” he said.

Speaking to Esquire in a new video interview, the actor clarified that Harry Styles did not spit on him and said, “Harry did not spit on me, Harry is a very kind guy. I was on the plane and we’re flying back from Venice having a great time on the plane and my publicist wakes me up and says, ‘We have to craft a statement on what happened in Venice.’ She showed me the thing and it did look, indeed, like Harry spit on me. He didn’t spit on me. I think Harry leaned down and said, ‘It’s just words isn’t it?’ We had this little joke. We were all jet lagged and trying to answer questions and sometimes when you’re doing these press things your brain goes befuddled and you start speaking gibberish, so we had a joke: ‘It’s just words.’”

In Don’t Worry Darling, Chris Pine starred as the antagonist Frank, the leader of a utopian 1950s community named Victory Project, under whom Harry Styles’ character Jack Chambers was recruited. Directed by Olivia Wilde, Don’t Worry Darling was touted as a psychological thriller and starred Florence Pugh, Gemma Chan, Nick Kroll and Kiki Layne. Despite receiving mixed reviews upon release, the film turned out to be a commercial success.