Howard Stern asked Robert Downey Jr. about his much-publicized walk out from an interview with British journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy during an appearance on his radio show Tuesday.
“I just wish I’d left sooner,” Downey Jr. told Howard Stern. “I’m one of those guys who I’m always assuming the social, kind of, decorum is in play. And that we’re promoting a superhero movie, a lot of kids are going to see it, and this has nothing to do with your creepy, dark agenda that I’m feeling all of a sudden, like, ashamed and obligated to accommodate your weirdo shit.”
Robert Downey Jr. told Howard Stern how he really feels about Guru-Murthy when he called him “a bottom-feeding muckraker.”
In the interview, Guru-Murthy asked Downey about some very personal issues, including his politics, his past drug addiction and his stint in jail. Robert Downey Jr. reiterated to Howard Stern that he was not down with that line of questioning.
Robert Downey Jr. vented to @HowardStern about his interview walk out last week: http://t.co/kff3ZgD2aN pic.twitter.com/2lqQaVG2dO
— AOL Entertainment (@AOLEntertain) April 29, 2015
However, Guru-Murthy said in a piece he wrote for the The Guardian about the interview that he pre-screened the questions with Downey Jr.’s publicist before the interview.
“We don’t do promotional interviews on Channel 4 News. We agree with PR people that as well as talking about a new movie for a while we want to ask wider ranging questions on relatively serious topics, and we don’t guarantee to run any answers in particular,” wrote Guru-Murthy. “When Robert Downey Jr.’s PR man rang up asking what we wanted to talk about, we said we had no particular agenda but would ask about the new Avengers superhero movie and his recovery from jail and drug abuse to Hollywood stardom.”
5 things we learned from @RobertDowneyJr's interview with @HowardStern: http://t.co/lNwZnJYpHK pic.twitter.com/62FQqJPST2
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) April 28, 2015
Robert Downey Jr. didn’t minx words when he shared his feelings about questions along the lines of Guru-Murthy’s to Howard Stern, although he didn’t mention him by name.
“The assumption is that there’s a button that because you’ve sat down there you’re going to be scrutinized like you’re a kiddie fiddler who’s running for mayor,” Downey said. “What I have to do in the future is have to give myself permission to say, ‘That is more than likely a syphilitic parasite, and I need to distance myself from this clown.’ Otherwise, I’m probably going to put hands on somebody, and then there’s a real story.”