During Sunday night’s Tony Awards, many wondered exactly what was going on with a Neil Patrick Harris tweet. No one could really tell whether or not the How I Met Your Mother star was shading Rachel Bloom while she served as a backstage correspondent at the event, but it wasn’t good. “Who is the woman in the top hat backstage at @TheTonyAwards?” he tweeted. “[My son] Gideon remarked that she says ‘like’ and ‘oh my god’ a lot. I’m confused…”
Who is the woman in the top hat backstage at @TheTonyAwards? Gideon remarked that she says ‘like’ and ‘oh my god’ a lot. I’m confused…
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 11, 2018
As it turns out, this wasn’t a joke, and NPH failed to recognize someone that he’d met several times, as Bloom quickly pointed out in a return tweet.
https://twitter.com/Racheldoesstuff/status/1006000777662423040
At that point, NPH did not apologize, he simply thanked her “for the reminder” of how they’d met, and then he swiftly changed the subject.
Indeed! Well said. Thanks for the reminder. How was backstage?
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 11, 2018
Well, GQ caught up with Bloom, and she confirmed that, nope, this wasn’t a prearranged joke, and she was actually kind of crushed as a result:
No, no, no. It wasn’t a joke. Basically… I saw that tweet. And I was kind of devastated. I was actually going to tweet, “This makes me sad.” But then I was like, “Ehhhhhhhhhh… I don’t want to give him that, necessarily.” Look. I’ve met him a couple times. Very recently, backstage in the dressing room of a Broadway show. And we hung out for a solid 15 minutes with the star of this Broadway show. It was just bizarre to me that it wouldn’t ring a bell. And also, that he wouldn’t Google it.
Bloom seemed most thrown off by how NPH didn’t apologize when he acknowledged her response. And then she put him (along with many other famous folks) in his place for believing that “every kind of random, unformed thought is a gem, because you get 10,000 likes from it.” Bloom then expressed the desire for always having people around her that “will call me out on my shit,” so she’s never rude to folks on Twitter while being “weird or unoriginal,” and she wants to always be “a person first, and a famous person second.”
Someone must have elbowed NPH because he finally apologized for “failing to research” Bloom before sending what he thought was a “funny” tweet.
Sincere apologies to @Racheldoesstuff for my Tony tweet. I failed to research her before pressing ‘send’, and what I thought was a funny comment in our living room must have been far from funny to read, backstage, mid show. As a performer and a parent, I should have know better.
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 13, 2018
Earlier today, NPH was also being “funny” by suggesting that his followers send him “expensive” birthday presents such as these. Perhaps someone needs a Twitter break?
What I want for my birthday, Part Three: automatons. Moving mechanical marvels, either vintage or contemporary, like this from the amazing Thomas Kuntz. Awesome. https://t.co/LxSMcBbzPb
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 13, 2018
What I want for my birthday, Part One: anything designed by @elonmusk, or any intel on what future technologies he’s creating. Cough, cough, 2 day shipping with @amazonprimenow, cough!
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 13, 2018
Things I want for my birthday, Part Four: a melodica. It’s a keyboard that you play by breathing into a tube on the end. Also known as a ‘blow organ’ but, umm, I’m, err, probably better off calling it a melodica. https://t.co/QCsvciaBOV
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 13, 2018
(Via GQ)