You guys may want to sit down for this – it seems that there are some websites and media outlets out there that get wind of a rumor and run with it as if they are 100 percent convinced that it’s true, despite the fact that they have no eyewitness confirmation or contact with the people who were involved. I know, I’m completely shocked, too, and this whole revelation has just left me speechless. So it turns out that while sites like Page Six were reporting that Neil Patrick Harris, one of the most beloved actors and entertainers on the planet, had screamed at a fan and called her a “mother*cker” during a recent performance of the Broadway show, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, there was just a wee bit more context to the story.
Specifically, this is what Page Six reported:
Neil Patrick Harris had a profane message for a besotted fan who disrupted his Broadway show “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”
Mid-performance, a female fan yelled out, “I love you, Neil!” Harris — who plays a transgender East German punk — yelled back, without missing a beat, in character, “I’m doing something up here, motherf–ker!”
The Post’s Barbara Hoffman reports it was met with rapturous applause.
The applause, however, didn’t come as the result of NPH’s epic heckler smackdown, as the cool kids would say. Instead, people cheered because they knew that it was all part of the show.
A rep for the actor tells Gossip Cop exclusively, “The response to the fan yelling was actually done in character — Neil as Hedwig, not as though Neil stopped the show to respond out of character.”
In fact, the full interaction wasn’t even reported, much less accurately.
Harris’ rep explains, “When the fan initially yelled, ‘I love you, Neil,’ Neil (as Hedwig) then responded, ‘Who’s Neil? I’m not Neil.’ He then looked over at Yitzhak (played by Lena Hall) and said, ‘Are you Neil? You better not be Neil’ followed by Hedwig then offering the quote in question.”
“It was all done in good fun, and fully in the context of the show. The audience went crazy and it really was a light-hearted moment, which is not being properly contextualized in any of these various posts,” adds the spokesperson. (Via Gossip Cop)
So there you have it, just in case one of your friends posts something on Facebook about what a total A-hole Harris is. Barney Howser, MD was just locked into his role and playing along with the fans like he’s supposed to. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to investigate a report that angry fans were demanding free salt at a Jimmy Buffet show.