A Robert Downey Jr Rant

Usually, we’re more keen to promote the positive vibes here on IMAGE.ie but sometimes, god dammit, we feel like a rant is the only call.

Can we all just take a moment to consider how Iron Man’s Robert Downey Jr chose to greet interviewer Lorraine Kelly? ‘Nice t*ts’, Lorraine recently revealed. Not ‘hi, nice to meet you’, not even ‘hello, you’re looking lovely’, if he had wanted to compliment her appearance. Nope, he went straight for the jugular, asserting his male dominance by honing in on Lorraine’s feminine attributes and disregarding her professional role. What he may as well have said was ‘I’m Robert Downey Jr, I make more money than you could imagine and I can say whatever the hell I want and you’re just a lowly journalist.’ Would have had the same effect, wouldn’t it?

Of course, most people would look upon this lightly, as a bit of fun. ‘It’s OK because he’s Robert Downey Junior, hello, and he’s really, really famous and Lorraine should just consider herself lucky to have met the man at all, let alone have him compliment her ample bosom.’ But this in itself, dear IMAGE.ie readers, is a complete joke. Who does he think he is? Is he some superhuman being, living beyond the realms of us mere mortals?

Speaking to The Daily Mail, Lorraine (very nicely) sets the story straight:

?Robert?was not quite himself. He had a time in his life when maybe he was discovering himself, having issues. He came on looking a bit worse for wear and he had?no shoes?on and he wandered around and he sat down and I said hello and he looked at me and said, ?Nice t*ts?. It could have been worse. He could have said, ?Oh, I don’t like them?. It is a difficult thing to respond to.’

The thing is, as Lorraine herself would probably agree, though she’s too much of a professional to really badmouth him, it wasn’t a compliment as such, but more an opportunity for him to play the big man and subsequently make her feel uneasy as she attempted to conduct an interview.

What irks us even more, and this is a wider discussion, is what we read about RDJ (who we’re normally fans of) and his high maintenance demands whilst at these press junkets. Having experienced hundreds of press events ourselves, we’re well used to the tip-toeing around ‘talent’ that goes on, watching as their staff barge in and out of rooms like horned bulls, ensuring their every desire is taken care of. ‘If the tea’s not perfect, she won’t be happy’, we once overheard. It’s a cup of tea, people, not brain surgery.

As per The Daily Mail, Speaking on the Jonathan Ross Show, Lorraine explained that she had been primed to expect that the room temperature would upset him and so was thrown off when he greeted her in such a manner.

?We were in a hotel room waiting for him and a minion came in and said the room was too hot. He kept coming back every ten minutes saying ?The room is too hot.?Robert?won’t like it?. ?The man had a?Robert?Downey Jr thermometer.”

So is it the staff or the star to blame? With an entourage catering to their every need, are celebrities such as RDJ at risk of turning into monsters for whom everything must be just right? As we’ve said before, while actors and musicians are indeed talented individuals, they’re not saving lives, they’re not curing cancer and they’re no better than the rest of us.

And as for the ‘Nice t*ts’ comment, celebrity or not, male or female, stranger or acquaintance, that’s just never OK. An apology would be nice, but it’s doubtful she’d ever get it.

What were your thoughts on RDJ’s comment?

@CarolineForan