Harry Styles is making fun of a messy circumstance.
At the “As it Was” singer’s Madison Square Garden performance on Wednesday, Styles made light of the controversial online debate that followed the Venice Film Festival premiere of Don’t Worry Darling: did he spit on co-star Chris Pine or not? The notion that Styles would spit on Pine is absurd, according to a source who previously received an exclusive comment from Pine’s representative.
According to numerous fan videos, Styles, a 28-year-old actor and musician, joked about going “very quickly to Venice to spit on Chris Pine” during his performance. The audience cheered after the comment.
Internet trolls started spreading the rumor that Styles spat on Pine during the Monday night premiere of Don’t Worry Darling, alleging that the 42-year-old actor leaned down to take his seat next to him.
Notably, Pine was sat to the left of Styles’ girlfriend Olivia Wilde, who served as the film’s director.
As the “Watermelon Sugar” singer made his way over to Pine, his lips can be seen moving before Pine quickly looks down and stops clapping — which some believed was him acknowledging that the singer had just spit.
“This is a stupid narrative — a complete fiction and the consequence of a weird web illusion that is blatantly deceptive and allows for dumb speculation,” Pine’s representative said to PEOPLE on Tuesday.
The representative said, “Just to be clear, Harry Styles did not spit on Chris Pine. Any insinuation that there is anything other than respect between these two men is a flagrant attempt to create drama that just does not exist.
The film, which stars Styles and Florence Pugh, 26, as a 1950s California couple residing in an odd planned suburban neighborhood, has been in the news for behind-the-scenes drama over the previous several weeks.
Shia LaBeouf, the original star who was supposed to portray Styles’ part, was sacked, according to director and co-star Wilde in a recent Variety interview. LaBeouf retaliated, saying he “left the picture owing to lack of rehearsal time,” in an email to Variety.