There was a strange dust-up online Tuesday when the age old “who is the best Chris” debate was revived with teeth, leading to an outpouring of defense via actors from the MCU and beyond. What resulted is an interesting look at the Hollywood rumor mill and how it sometimes intersects with church drama and political division.
If you somehow aren’t aware of the discourse, there’s nothing people love to do more than rank Chrises Evans, Hemsworth, Pratt and Pine and they’ve been doing it for years now. Earlier this week, that debate started up again and Pratt came out pretty decisively at the low end of the rankings. There could be any number of reasons for that, but a few people on Twitter and Instagram dragged Pratt for his politics.
This led to celeb pals like Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Zoe Saldana, Josh Gad and James Gunn assembling to stand up for Pratt. “You all, @prattprattpratt is as solid a man there is,” Ruffalo tweeted. “I know him personally, and instead of casting aspersions, look at how he lives his life. He is just not overtly political as a rule.”
“The ‘sinless’ are casting stones at my brother, Chris Pratt,” Downey Jr. posted on Instagram. “A real Christian who lives by principle, has never demonstrated anything but positivity and gratitude.”
“I’ve spent hours & hours sharing my deepest truths with this man, as he has with me,” Gunn tweeted. “Please stop assuming what he believes, politically or in any other way, because he’s a Christian.”
“Your family, friends, colleagues and everyone who’s ever crossed paths with you knows your heart and your worth,” Saldana tweeted at Pratt.
Pratt doesn’t talk about politics much, so any gossip is mostly based on inference. He recently married into the Schwarzenegger family, meaning his father-in-law is the one-time Republican Governator himself (though it should be said that Ah-nold is very much not a fan of the current President). Pratt follows a lot of conservative-type folks on social media like Ben Shapiro and the rightwing org Prager U. He also didn’t attend a big Zoom rally for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris that featured a lot of his MCU co-stars like Evans, Ruffalo, Saldana, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson and Paul Rudd.
Obviously, none of this is quite the same thing as wearing a MAGA hat, and all Pratt has ever really said about politics is that he doesn’t identify with either party. He told Men’s Fitness in 2017 that “I don’t feel represented by either side,” of the political divide, although he did donate some money to Barack Obama’s campaign in 2012. Pratt hasn’t talked about his feelings on this year’s election, although his wife Katherine Schwarzenegger-Pratt said she’ll be supporting Biden.
Pratt’s also taken some heat for his association with an “anti-LGBT church.” This appears to be a result of some confusion from last year, when it was circulated that Pratt attends Hillsong Church. Actually, Pratt attends Zoe Church in LA. Zoe’s policies around LGBT inclusion aren’t clear, but Pratt himself has addressed the rumor by saying, “Nothing could be further from the truth …I go to a church that opens their doors to absolutely everyone.”
So, all told, this appears to be an example of the extremely online set getting a little over their skis when it comes to determining what a star does and does not believe. None of this means that Pratt is above criticism or that he should be your favorite Chris or anything, but a guy who draws the respect of Downey Jr. (who has said that he’s not a liberal) and Ruffalo (who was really feeling the Bern) can’t be all that polarizing. At least, not in real life. On social media, of course, all bets are off.