Stephen Amell Is So Completely Full Of It

By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | August 2, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | August 2, 2023 |

Heels is an exceptional show (think Friday Night Lights but with wrestling) with several talented individuals (Mary McCormick, Mike O’Malley, Chris Bauer, Alison Luff) involved. By some miracle, it was renewed for a second season — probably because there are four of us critics who championed it — which took two years to materialize. However, within a day of its premiere, star Stephen Amell undermined any goodwill the show might have managed to build during the hiatus.

This is not a new development. Two months before the first season premiered, Amell had an altercation with his wife on a plane and got kicked off for yelling at her. This PR nightmare carried over into the show’s premiere. To his credit, Amell took full responsibility and did not blame his wife (who he said did nothing to provoke the argument). “I can’t even remember what I was upset about,” Amell stated, “which was indicative of two things: A) I can’t handle my liquor, and I had too many drinks, and B) it clearly wasn’t important. I was just upset and wanted to be upset.”

At the time, he also added, “I feel like I went the better part of 10 years without being an asshole in public, and I was an asshole in public.”

Fast forward two years, Amell behaved poorly in public again, stating at a Galaxycon in Raleigh, North Carolina (which he probably wasn’t supposed to attend due to the SAG strike rules) that although he supported his union, he did not believe in strikes, referring to them as a “reductive negotiating tactic” and “incredibly frustrating.”

Amell received a flurry of backlash for those comments. Yesterday, he backtracked, insisting he was taken out of context. It’s not uncommon for a celebrity to have a quote taken out of context, usually by a clickbait publication that morphs something said in jest into a serious statement. For instance, one publication might write, “I would murder my sister for a bagel that good,” Tom Hanks joked. The next publication, however, might omit the “joked,” and write, “I would murder my sister for a bagel that good,” Tom Hanks threatened. The next publication might then write, “Psychotic Tom Hanks admits that he would execute a family member for gluten.”

Misrepresentation is one thing, but it’s entirely another matter to self-exonerate by misrepresenting your own words. To clarify, Amell took to Instagram to explain his statements:

What I actually said: “I support my union, I do, and I stand with them.” This doesn’t need much clarity: My support is unconditional, and I stand with them. What I actually said: “I do not support striking, I don’t.” What this means in full context: I understand fundamentally why we’re here. My off the cuff use of the word “support” is clearly contradictory to my true feelings and my emphatic statement that I stand with my union. Of course, I don’t like striking. Nobody does. But we have to do what we have to do.

So, when he says he “does not support striking,” the word “support” is used “off the cuff,” but three seconds prior when he said, “I support my union,” the word support was used as intended? “I stand with my union” is “emphatic,” but the next sentence is “clearly contradictory.” Clear to whom?

“I think that it is a reductive negotiating tactic, and I find the entire thing incredibly frustrating.” In full context: I’m an actor and I was speaking extemporaneously for over an hour. I emote, but I certainly don’t think these issues are simple. Our leadership has an incredibly complicated job, and I am grateful for all that they do. Despite some of my terrible early acting work, I assure you, I’m not a robot. From an intellectual perspective, I understand why we are striking, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t emotionally frustrating on many levels for all involved.

So, the context was that he was merely speaking spontaneously, he’s an actor and doesn’t know any better, and he probably doesn’t understand what “reductive” means? This is absurd. The whole situation is absurd.

Stephen Amell is not the kind of actor the strike is designed to help: Someone struggling to make ends meet between jobs, who wants to maintain health insurance. He’s also not an A-list actor who doesn’t need to worry about money. Stephen Amell is, in fact, the kind of actor who the strike hurts the most and benefits the least. That’s why he doesn’t support the strike; it’s because he doesn’t personally benefit from it, and he doesn’t seem to care about the majority of the actors on his own show who would benefit from the strike. Like, for instance, an actor like Robby Ramos, who appears in 11 out of 12 of the first season episodes but was not a regular cast member in the first season, so he likely received less pay, and between seasons had to survive on guest spots in Chicago PD and NCIS: Hawaii, which probably didn’t compensate him enough to maintain health insurance during the intervening year. That’s who the strike is for.

Not striking is for actors like Amell, who merely wants to promote his low-rated (but excellent) show in hopes it will get a third season so he can continue to be paid at a rate far exceeding Robby Ramos’s.

Amell also told TMZ yesterday that he wanted the union and AMPTP to “get back to the table,” and the good news is, that seems to be in the pipeline. The studios are reportedly ready to return to the negotiating table this Friday to talk to the writers.

Meanwhile, you know who has gone a decade without even once being an asshole in public? Robbie Amell.