Neil Patrick Harris has apologized after putting his foot in his mouth with a tweet about Sunday night’s Tony Awards.
The drama all stems from an observation Harris made about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s Rachel Bloom—who was doing some live co-hosting for the show’s backstage coverage.
“Who is the woman in the top hat backstage at @TheTonyAwards?” Harris asked. He then pointed out that his 7-year-old son, Gideon, was annoyed by the way she spoke. “Gideon remarked that she says ‘like’ and ‘oh my god’ a lot. I’m confused.”
Who is the woman in the top hat backstage at @TheTonyAwards? Gideon remarked that she says ‘like’ and ‘oh my god’ a lot. I’m confused…
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 11, 2018
It turns out Harris has actually met Bloom a number of times, a fact she promptly pointed out on Twitter.
“I’m a big fan of yours,” Bloom wrote. “We’ve met numerous times and my husband, Dan Gregor, wrote for How I Met Your Mother for 5 years. Notably, he wrote the episode where your character finally meets his father.”
https://twitter.com/Racheldoesstuff/status/1006000777662423040
It was a cringe heard round the world. Harris replied to Bloom’s tweet fairly quickly, asking her “How was backstage?” but didn’t include an apology, which left fans confused:
Indeed! Well said. Thanks for the reminder. How was backstage?
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 11, 2018
For days, people speculated as to whether the celebs were maybe sharing some inside joke—or if things were actually as awkward as they seemed.
As luck would have it, Bloom had an interview with GQ scheduled this week and got to share her side of things.
“No, no, no. It wasn’t a joke,” she said. “Basically… I saw that tweet. And I was kind of devastated. I was actually going to tweet, ‘This makes me sad.’ But then I was like, ‘Ehhhhhhhhhh… I don’t want to give him that, necessarily.’ Look. I’ve met him a couple times. Very recently, backstage in the dressing room of a Broadway show. And we hung out for a solid 15 minutes with the star of this Broadway show. It was just bizarre to me that it wouldn’t ring a bell. And also, that he wouldn’t Google it.”
Harris cleared the air with an apology Wednesday.
“Sincere apologies to @Racheldoesstuff for my Tony tweet,” Harris wrote. “I failed to research her before pressing ‘send’, and what I thought was a funny comment in our living room must have been far from funny to read, backstage, mid show. As a performer and a parent, I should have know [sic] better.”
Sincere apologies to @Racheldoesstuff for my Tony tweet. I failed to research her before pressing ‘send’, and what I thought was a funny comment in our living room must have been far from funny to read, backstage, mid show. As a performer and a parent, I should have know better.
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 13, 2018
Bloom ultimately said she accepted Harris’ apology. Phew.
https://twitter.com/Racheldoesstuff/status/1006967339449896961
Broadway beef: squashed.
