Chris Pratt says social media criticism, including 'worst Chris' title, 'really f***ing bothered me'
Chris Pratt has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about being dubbed the "worst Hollywood Chris."
A new Men's Health profile on the Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World actor spends a significant chunk analyzing why some on social media find Pratt unlikable. It's not just the "worst Chris" thing — how, in 2020, Twitter users ripped him apart in a ranking of movie star Chrises (Hemsworth, Pine and Evans). There's also been backlash over a 2021 tribute post to wife Katherine Schwarzenegger, and much over whether he attends an anti-LGBTQ church. He has his theories about why he's been "misunderstood," which he shared, admitting the online hate has "really f***ing bothered me."
"You don't ever wanna get caught complaining or anything," Pratt told the outlet. "'Cause I have so many blessings. I consider everything a blessing truly in my life." However, he admitted he's wondered, "Why are they coming after me?"
The Parks and Recreation alum, 43, pinpointed the public turn to his "God is real, God loves you, God wants the best for you. Believe that. I do" speech at the 2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards.
"Maybe it was hubris," the Generation Award winner said. "For me to stand up on the stage and say the things that I said, I’m not sure I touched anybody. Religion has been oppressive as f*** for a long time. I didn’t know that I would kind of become the face of religion when really I’m not a religious person. I think there’s a distinction between being religious — adhering to the customs created by man, oftentimes appropriating the awe reserved for who I believe is a very real God — and using it to control people, to take money from people, to abuse children, to steal land, to justify hatred. Whatever it is. The evil that’s in the heart of every single man has glommed on to the back of religion and come along for the ride.”
That led to Pratt addressing directly for the first time his association with Hillsong, a controversial megachurch that has had leaders declare homosexuality a sin. Pratt denies there is one.
"I never went to Hillsong," he said. "I’ve never actually been to Hillsong. I don’t know anyone from that church."
Asked why he never said that directly before, including in 2019 when he publicly denied going to a church that "hates people," he replied, "I'm gonna, like, throw a church under the bus?" He paused and added, "If it’s like the Westboro Baptist Church, that's different."
For the record, he said he attends Zoe Church, which has similarities to Hillsong. The founder of Zoe, pastor Chad Veach, served as the executive producer for a film about people who "have struggled with 'sexual brokenness,'" which included "same-sex attraction."
Pratt then said he doesn't attend Zoe exclusively, noting that when he and Schwarzenegger baptized their daughter Lyla, nearly 2, the ceremony was held at a Catholic church in Santa Monica that Schwarzenegger attended as a child.
Pratt also spoke of the backlash over a November Instagram tribute he posted to Schwarzenegger, with whom he also shares newborn daughter Eloise, in which he thanked her for giving him a "healthy" child. Social media viewed it as a dig against his first wife, Anna Faris, who delivered their son prematurely.
"I [wrote] something like, 'Find someone who looks at you the way my wife looks at me,'" Pratt said of the post. "Then I gave her some s*** in the thing and said, 'But I love you. I'm so thankful for my wife — she gave me a beautiful, healthy daughter.' And then a bunch of articles came out and said, 'That’s so cringeworthy. I can't believe Chris Pratt would thank her for a healthy daughter when his first child was born premature. That's such a dig at his ex-wife.' And I'm like, That is f***ed up. My son's gonna read that one day. He's 9. And it's etched in digital stone."
He said, "It really f***ing bothered me, dude. I cried about it. I was like, I hate that these blessings in my life are — to the people close to me — a real burden."
Pratt let his guard down on these topics to the point where he imagined what his publicist would have said had she been present for the conversation. ("'I'm sweating, Chris, I'm sweating,'" he pictured her saying. "'What happened to the it's-an-honor-just-to-be-nominated-let's-move-on f***ing line that we talked about?'") But clearly, his team was involved in the piece because it went so far as to have two directors speak to how Pratt is far from the worst Hollywood Chris.
"It absolutely infuriates me," Guardians's James Gunn told the outlet. "Chris is unspeakably kind to people... And there’s a lot of stuff that people have literally just made up about him — about his politics, about who he is, about what he believes of other people, you know?"
Colin Trevorrow, who directed two Jurassic World films, also praised him for the profile, saying, "I don’t know why we treat each other this way."
