A few weeks back, I told you about a South African tabloid report saying Die Antwoord’s Ninja had been “pure evil” on the set of Chappie, harassing castmembers, acting like a prima donna, and being a general pain in everyone’s ass. Now Ninja, aka Watkin Tudor Jones, has responded in his own words (and emojis) over on BoingBoing. I must say, he sounds fairly reasonable and articulate for a guy with crudely-drawn dick tattoo on his shoulder.
On the rumor that Blomkamp couldn’t stand to be in the same room as him by the time shooting was finished:
just to be super clear, all the rumours about my ‘terrible behaviour’ on set was written by 1 south african journalist, who has written many tabloid-style diss features on Die Antwoord (over the last 3 years) before his big Chappie feature. i have no idea who this dude is, but he seems to have a lil problem with us. some of his other features were called: ‘DIE ANTWOORD – NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT’ and ‘DIE ANTWOORD – SOUTH AFRICA’S WORST NIGHTMARE’.
but this last feature he wrote titled: ‘NINJA – PURE EVIL’ (where all the funny chappie rumors came from) was the juiciest 1 by far, my boy got really busy dis time :-P
…but anyway, nah, me and neill (and his wife terri) are all homies, we speak all the time, neill and terri love me and ¥ and we love dem back ♥
Of course, those tabloid rumors sort of came and went without anyone picking them up until Ninja’s co-star Brandon Auret lent them credence by acknowledging that the two had feuded on set. Of that, Ninja says:
i did bump heads a little with brandon auret (hippo) who was juiced up on a copius amount of steroids during filming (to help him stay buff) and so he was on edge the whole time…
during one take brandon was so pumped up that he punched the window of the van that ¥o-landi was sitting right next to, and the window smashed (real glass, not fake glass) and glass went in ¥o-landi’s eye, but she didnt complain, and just went to the medic and got it washed out quietly…
brandons finger got cut open during this incident and he super glued it together, coz he was tweeking so hard and didnt want to wait for stitches…
it was fun working out how to play our scenes with sharlto and dev patel and the other actors, but brandon got a little weird about me suggesting anything and went crying to production about me… but its just water under the bridge coz the HIPPO character was f*ckin ill as f*ck…
He goes on to throw varying amounts of shade and cold water on other rumors, like that he hit on all the female crew and showed off a picture of him blowing himself. Finally he finishes off the piece, how else, by quoting James Franco in The Interview:
To sum all this sh*t up… in the wise words of the great James Franco:
MOTHERF*CKERS ARE PEANUT BUTTER AND JEALOUS… THEY HATE US CAUSE THEY ANUS? ♥
I’d love to take a time machine back to middle school just to see the looks on people’s faces when I tell them that in 2015, peppering your writings with hearts and smiley faces will be considered gangsta.
Also, I’m going to need Ninja to tell us whether there’s any truth to the rumor that in Africa, it’s bling-bang.