Josh Hutcherson is opening up about the online backlash he received last year for not being a Taylor Swift fan, saying it’s exactly why he stays off the internet.
In a new interview with GQ, the famously offline actor reflected on reentering the worldwide web last year during the press tour for Rachel Sennott’s HBO show “I Love L.A.,” and a certain Swift comment that got him in hot water.
During a video interview with i-D Magazine, Hutcherson and his castmate Jordan Firstman played a game of camera roll roulette and Hutcherson pulled up a photo of him and his mom in the VIP section at Swift’s Era Tour in New Orleans. “My mom made me,” Hutcherson said of the concert, prompting Firstman to ask if he’s a fan of the pop star. “I’m not a Swiftie,” Hutcherson replied. “Very much not. No shade, all respect, but definitely not.”
This prompted a firestorm on social media, with some fans calling for Hutcherson to be canceled for accepting VIP tickets when he’s not really a fan. Responding to the backlash, Hutcherson told GQ: “I got some heat because I did a photo shoot with Jordan, and Jordan asked me something about being a [Taylor Swift fan], and I was like, ‘Oh no, I’m definitely not a Swiftie,’” he said. “All of a sudden it garnered this, ‘Fuck him! He’s a monster! Destroy him! He’s short! He hates her because he’s short!’ [He is five feet five.] “It’s just like, whoa! I think she’s great. Her music is not my kind of music. That is why I don’t want to be online.”
Since “I Love L.A.” has been out in the world, Hutcherson has returned to his offline ways. “I don’t need that energy,” he told GQ of limiting his presence on socials. “It’s counterintuitive to my job, because if people know you more, you can’t disappear into characters. They see you as, ‘Oh, that’s Josh.’ You know what I mean? So, if you’re a fucking meme, people know you for the meme.”
Hutcherson’s starring role in “The Hunger Games” franchise as Peeta Mellark did result in quite a few memes, but the actor still proudly stands by the films. “I could talk all day about ‘Hunger Games,’” he said. “I think [they] are amazing books. They’re fantastic movies. They stand for something important and real, especially in today’s world. The themes of authoritarianism and overpowering violent governments are very present. They didn’t listen to ‘The Hunger Games.’”
Though he acknowledged a movie is “not going to change the world,” he told GQ that it delivers an apt “warning about giving government too much power and control.”
He continued: “About not standing up against authoritarians. About stripping away civil rights, human rights. Being an American right now, it’s like… what the fuck is going on? … The fact that we’re at ICE raids in the streets and funding wars,. The fact that there are a lot of Americans who support it — and many more who don’t — makes you feel like an alien in your own place. It’s like, how are we allowing this?”
A prequel to the original “Hunger Games” movies, titled “Sunrise on the Reaping,” is set to release in November. While it’s been reported that Hutcherson’s Peeta and Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss do make an appearance in a flash-forward sequence of the film, the actor told GQ he “cannot confirm nor unconfirm” if he will have a cameo.
Read Hutcherson’s full GQ profile here.