Remember towards the end of last year, when it felt like every day there was a new chaotic story in the press about the cast of Don’t Worry Darling?
Weird time, that, wasn’t it?
Things, of course, reached new heights when the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September, and all anyone seemed to be talking about was a clip that appeared to show Harry Styles spitting on co-star Chris Pine in the audience.
Harry and Chris (via a representative) both dismissed the rumours at the time, but the Star Trek actor has finally had his say during an interview with Esquire.
Putting the matter to bed once and for all, the actor recalled: “I was on the plane with my publicist […] we’re flying back from Venice. And I’m sleeping, having a great time on the plane. I love planes.
“And she wakes me up, in a, you know, in a state. She says, ‘We have to craft a message about what happened in Venice.’ And I’m like ‘About what?’ ‘About Harry spitting on you.’ Which I have no idea what happened.
“She showed me the thing. It does look, indeed, like Harry spitting on me. He didn’t spit on me.”
Chris continued: “[I think Harry] leaned down, and I think he said, ‘It’s just words, isn’t it?’.
“Because we had this little joke, because we’re all jetlagged, we’re all trying to answer these questions, and sometimes when you’re doing these press things, your brain goes all befuddled, you know, you start speaking gibberish, and we had a joke like, ‘It’s just words, man’.”
Harry previously joked about the non-incident during a concert shortly after it went viral, telling his fans: “I just popped very quickly to Venice to spit on Chris Pine… but fear not, we’re back.”
Don’t Worry Darling director Olivia Wilde – who was in a relationship with the As It Was singer at the time – also dismissed the rumours during a US talk show appearance.
Read Chris Pine’s full Esquire interview here.