Chris Pratt is in the news again. As is his MO, the Lesser Chris is out here acting like a fool and making sure everyone knows about it. He posted the video above to Instagram, in which he talked about following the popular bee lady, Erika Thompson’s videos. We’ll talk more about Erika below, but her deal is she walks up to bees swarming in precarious places while wearing dark street clothes with her long hair flowing free in the breeze and scoops the bees up to relocate them. Everything in that sentence runs counter to bee-keeping procedure, as Vulture explains here. But if you don’t know anything about bee keeping, she seems like the bee whisperer and what’s worse, she makes it seem like you can be a bee whisperer too. At least she made Pratt feel that way, which is why he stupidly walked up to a beehive and tried to Jedi mind control the bees in it. Only Pratt doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing, and one of the bees said you wanna f*** around? Fine. And stung him in the left eye.
In an Instagram video posted Wednesday the “Guardians of the Galaxy” actor shared that he got stung by a bee after aggravating a hive near his home. He said he was inspired by a viral Texas beekeeper to take matters into his own hands.
“She’s so cool and brave, and she goes in front of these hives of bees and says, ‘They’re very calm today. I’m going to remove the bee,’” he said. “So it’s built up this false sense of security in me. To whereas I said, ‘I think I can control bees too.’”
“I just stared at these bees, and then one of them [came] out and it stung me in the eyeball,” he said, taking off his sunglasses to reveal his swollen eye. “So anyways, f— that bee lady.”
Pratt didn’t name Thompson in the video, but directly tagged her in his caption. Like a bee to honey, Thompson responded to Pratt’s ire.
“Wait—so now you’re going to be a plumber and a beekeeper @prattprattpratt?!,” she wrote in the comments.
“If you leave saving the bees to me and other professionals, you can focus on saving the Princess, Mario,” she added, referring to Pratt’s upcoming role in “Super Mario Bros.”
People are making a big deal about Erika responding to Pratt but my favorite comment was Sean Hayes’ who replied, “Which eye?” *snort* Several of Pratt’s friends made jokes at his expense, which makes me think perhaps that truly was his intention for the post and not actually an attack on the bee-scooper. Regardless of its intent, it brings up several points. One is a reminder that Pratt should not be allowed around animals of any kind. The man is the Anti-Steve Irwin. Second is that for all the good social media does, this is the bad side. Watching something on TikTok does not qualify as training. Why Pratt thought following some woman who claims to have over a decade of bee-keeping experience meant he should stick his face in a hive is beyond me. I can just hear his wife Katherine saying, “Dude, we just told the kids to stay away from the bees – were you not listening?!” One things for sure, that sting is hella painful. He’s paying for that hubris.
But the last point is about bees in general. I made a statement about “if you know anything about beekeeping.” I don’t. I have two friends that have elected to keep honey-making bees, one for profit, one for her mental health. They both had a full year of training with the bees they would keep before they got their own hive. I don’t follow Erika so I don’t know if she’s telling people her practices are unusual. But I’ve read the controversy. And because of this, I’m sure others will too. So if anything comes of Pratt’s fat eye, I hope it’s that people read a little bit on bees and plant some bee-friendly plants to attract native species into their yards. And then stay the hell away from them when they are there!
Photo credit: Instagram
