A representative for Jim Carrey on Thursday dismissed backlash the actor has received following an awkward exchange with a female journalist, saying the actor’s comments were “a ridiculous non-story.”
During an interview about “Sonic the Hedgehog,” reporter Charlotte Long of Bauer Media’s Heat asked Carrey if there was anything left on his bucket list. (The interview is in the clip below.)
“Just you,” the comic responded, prompting embarrassed giggles from Long. “That’s it. It’s all done now.”
Long then said, “I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Just own it,” Carrey replied.
Carrey’s publicist, Marleah Leslie, issued a fierce defense of the entertainer.
“This is a ridiculous non-story,” she wrote in an email to HuffPost. “Jim’s full quote was ‘Just you! That’s it, I’m all done now!’ clearly and good-naturedly referring to the interview as being on the top of his bucket list. It was in no way a reference to the journalist herself. This is another example of a clickbait headline pandering to the dark side of ‘scroll culture’ — a dirty business done by and for people with dirty minds.”
Although some online commenters seem to have a similar opinion about the interaction, many others were critical and called out the actor for being creepy. One Twitter user called him a “sleazeball,” another said she lost respect for Carrey and someone else asked, “Whyyy is this kind of thing still going on?”
Long declined to comment.