The Shady Side Of Chris Pratt
Chris Pratt is often hailed as a "nice guy" in Hollywood, a title he cemented with his lovable Parks and Recreation character (Andy Dwyer, anyone?) and family guy persona. But is Pratt the straight-laced and friendly actor we've come to love throughout the years? The answer might disappoint some of his diehard fans.
Similarly to other celebrities out there, Pratt has multiple sides. While many fans view him as a dedicated family man, some sources claim he cares more about fame. Hmm. Then there's the topic of his ex-wife, Anna Faris. Some supporters don't know that the exes' path to romance was a little questionable, a sentiment the House Bunny actress herself has admitted.
But wait — that's not all. Underneath Pratt's good guy veneer is an old arrest warrant (we'll get to that later) and an offensive comment he made about diversity issues in Hollywood. Do we have your attention? Settle in as we examine the shady side of Chris Pratt.
His romantic history with Faris is kind of complicated
When Chris Pratt and Anna Faris confirmed their engagement in January 2009, everything between the two appeared perfect. But some people might not know that Faris met Pratt while she was married to her first husband, actor Ben Indra. Yep, you read that correctly.
Although Faris denied the two hooked up while she was taken, it's kind of strange that Pratt revealed that he "could have" married her on the first day they met. "I knew I wanted to marry her pretty soon [after I met her,]" he told People in April 2009. "It took a while for me to admit it, because it would be crazy to be like, 'I want to marry you' the first day I met her. But I could have!"
Eek. We imagine Indra didn't feel great after he heard about this admission. Maybe Pratt could have kept that detail to himself?
Still, it's important to be clear that Pratt and Faris didn't cheat. Once Faris realized she had strong feelings for Pratt during their time co-starring on the 2007 movie, Take Me Home Tonight, she soon ended things with Indra. And immediately after she called it quits with her husband, she hightailed it over to Pratt's house for a hook-up.
Faris admitted that she wasn't a "hero" for waiting, however. She stated in her book, Unqualified: "So while I didn't cheat, I'm not completely innocent, either."
Did he leave his family in the dust?
After a respectable career in television and comedies, Pratt's career blew up with big budget films like Guardians of The Galaxy, Jurassic World, and Passengers, to name a few. Pratt's quick ascent to fame was reportedly tough for Faris to deal with, which is understandable if you believe the sources who say the actor became a bit of a workaholic during their marriage.
"He was gone for a great deal of time, one movie after another," a supposed insider told People after the couple's August 2017 split. "It made her very sad."
Making matters more upsetting? Pratt didn't see the couple's son Jack often during this hectic time. "From his seventh month to his 13th month, I saw him twice," the actor admitted to Entertainment Weekly. "It's tough. Anna told me his first sentence was 'Dada's working.'" Pratt tried to put a lighthearted spin on the sad reveal, adding: "I wonder how old he's going to be when his sentence is 'Dada needs to get a job."'
Of course, it can be difficult to balance work commitments as parent. We bet Pratt did the best he could at the time.
He supposedly has a monster ego
Given Pratt's seemingly quick transformation into an action film star, it's reasonable to speculate his self-esteem ballooned in a big way. Although digging yourself is par for the course in Hollywood, a source told OK! magazine that Pratt's fame turned him into a jerk.
"Chris' ego has exploded. He's cocky and rude to Anna, who worries she's old news now," the insider said. "All the differences between them have risen to the surface."
Another source, however, said that Faris was too insecure for her own good. "Chris became this huge movie star and Anna wasn't getting any big jobs. She was the more famous and sexy one at the start of their relationship and then things took a turn," they told Us Weekly. Ouch.
It sounds like the pair's dueling egos led to the demise of their romance, with the insider adding: "When they're in a big group, they each want to be the one telling the funniest joke."
Well, maybe the exes' split was for the best.
He might need a crash course in diversity issues
Every famous person slips up from to time, but Pratt really missed the mark when he argued that "blue-collar Americans" aren't adequately represented in Hollywood.
"I don't see personal stories that necessarily resonate with me, because they're not my stories," he explained to Men's Journal in April 2017. "I think there's room for me to tell mine, and probably an audience that would be hungry for them. The voice of the average, blue-collar American isn't necessarily represented in Hollywood."
Social media quickly pointed that many movies released in 2017 did address the blue-collar experience, like Fences and Manchester by the Sea, and that Pratt's observation possibly revealed a racial ignorance. "The phrase 'working class' is endowed with a value judgment (industriousness, nobility) that many people will never attribute to black folks," one person tweeted months after the controversy. "Remember Chris Pratt's comment about a lack of blue-collar people in movies? Because Fences didn't count to him."
Furthermore, it's worth noting that Hollywood is in the midst of an ongoing diversity problem. New research conducted by the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that "only four women of color were leads in 2017, and white actors were cast in 70.7% of all speaking roles," as reported by The Guardian.
Pratt eventually apologized for his remarks, writing on Twitter: "That was actually a pretty stupid thing to say. I'll own that. There's a ton of movies about blue collar America."
His church allegedly holds anti-LGBTQ views
Pratt was spotted at Hillsong Church in Los Angeles in September 2017, the same congregation frequented by Kourtney Kardashian and Justin Bieber. Although each person is entitled to choose their own place of worship, we can't help but point out the church's problematic history with the LGBTQ community.
For starters, Brian Houston, the founder and senior pastor at Hillsong Church, said in a statement posted to the church's website that it doesn't "affirm a gay lifestyle." The statement reads, in part: "Hillsong Church welcomes ALL people but does not affirm all lifestyles. Put clearly, we do not affirm a gay lifestyle and because of this we do not knowingly have actively gay people in positions of leadership, either paid or unpaid." Yikes.
A former member of Hillsong, journalist Ben Fenlon, alleged that one of the organization's pastors compared homosexuality to pedophilia. "When I asked this pastor about being gay, he told me that I shouldn't be so obsessed with identifying as gay — that it wasn't my fault, I was born that way, just like someone who is a drug addict, a pedophile, or someone with mental health problems," Fenlon told TooFab.
Another ex-member, Alex Pittaway, claimed to the Daily Beast that Hillsong hasn't been "upfront with" their alleged mistreatment of gay people, which makes the situation worse. "Gay people need to know that when they go to Hillsong, they have to go to the back of the bus," Pittaway said.
His strange brush with the law
Pratt revealed to late night host Stephen Colbert in September 2016 that there was once a warrant out for his arrest. Considering the actor presents a pretty clean cut image, we definitely didn't see this one coming.
So, what happened? It all started when Pratt accepted a role in the 2005 film, Strangers with Candy. Pratt, who lived in Los Angeles at the time, lied about living in New York because production wanted to hire someone local for the role. Pratt had anticipated his salary would cover lodging, but that assumption blew up in his face when he had to fly across the country to respond to a warrant out for his arrest. "I had to go to court. Because I had a warrant out for my arrest," he told Colbert. "Which is pretty awesome to say."
As for Pratt's alleged a crime? Look no further than "an unpaid insurance ticket." Hey, it could have been worse. In the end, Pratt's flub cost him a whopping $3,000 in total.
While some might argue that an insurance ticket is no big deal (it happens all the time, right?) we find it a tad shady that Pratt let his mistake get to the arrest warrant stage. That's no bueno.
That time he offended the hearing-impaired
Sometimes Pratt can be insensitive, a trait he put on display in May 2016 when he offended some members of the deaf community. It all started when he appeared in a promotional video Marvel posted to Instagram, in which he told viewers to turn up the volume and not just "read the subtitles" (via Variety). Many people later commented on the since-deleted post, arguing that Pratt neglected to consider people with hearing impairments.
Although the move was arguably tactless, Pratt made up for it by clarifying his remark in sign language. "Instagram does this thing where it mutes all the videos it shows and forces you to turn on the volume in order to hear them," he wrote in the post's caption. "So when I made a video recently with subtitles, and requested that people turn up the volume and not just 'read the subtitles' it was so people wouldn't scroll past the video on mute, thus watching and digesting the information in the video."
He continued: "As always I control my social media. Nobody else. And I am doing this because I'm actually really sorry. Apologies are powerful. I don't dole them out Willy-Nilly. This is one of those moments where I screwed up and here's me begging your pardon. I hope you accept my apology."
At least Pratt can admit when he is wrong, right?