Jennifer Lopez’s interaction with E!’s Glambot director Cole Walliser on the Golden Globes red carpet last week went viral for all the wrong reasons.
And on Sunday, Walliser addressed the controversy, giving his version of what happened.
Hundreds of comments posted on Walliser’s Instagram alongside the clip accused Lopez, 56, of being ‘rude’ while thousands more people hit the ‘like’ button on the backlash remarks.
Viewers were left fuming after the tightly edited video appeared to show the singer and actress ‘ignore’ Walliser as he prepped her for the Glambot shot.
Walliser, who was in charge of the high-speed camera which produces slow motion, glamorous images of celebrities, greeted Lopez who responded by seeming to murmur ‘Hi, nice to see you,’ while looking down.
‘@jlo buy some manners,’ one person wrote.
‘Such a snob. Hard to watch,’ another said as one outraged fan declared, ‘She didn’t even look at him.’
Jennifer Lopez’s interaction with E!’s Glambot director Cole Walliser on the Golden Globes red carpet last week went viral for all the wrong reasons
Viewers were left fuming after the tightly edited video shared online appeared to show the singer and actress ‘ignore’ Walliser as he prepped her for the Glambot shot
Walliser began Sunday’s video post by suggesting that ‘the internet needs to just calm down.’
The Canadian director assured his fans that he had no problem with the way Lopez reacted: ‘I didn’t take it personally. It didn’t feel rude in that moment.’
He went on: ‘I think there’s a couple things that added to the fuel of this idea. One, she’s just down to business. The carpet was closed. She’s ready to go inside. She knew what she was gonna do. She got into the position.
‘It’s just unfortunate that the position was she was facing away from me. So I am talking to her, she is looking away, but she’s getting ready for the move.’
Walliser added: ‘I knew what she was doing.
‘I knew she was getting ready. I knew it was late. We were just getting through it. That moment didn’t feel rude.’
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Do YOU see this as rudeness or red-carpet pressure?
Hundreds of comments posted on Walliser’s Instagram alongside the clip accused the star of being ‘rude’ while thousands more people hit the ‘like’ button on the backlash remarks
The Canadian director reassured his fans on Sunday that he had no problem with the way Lopez reacted: ‘I didn’t take it personally. It didn’t feel rude in that moment’
‘I knew what she was doing,’ Walliser said. ‘I knew she was getting ready. I knew it was late. We were just getting through it. That moment didn’t feel rude’
Walliser made it clear that posing for the Glambot is something a celebrity can freely choose to do or not do.
‘Anybody that stops [for the Glambot], I already like you because you’re taking the time to do my thing and this is generous of you because you don’t have to do it,’ he shared.
Red carpets are ‘generally insane,’ he noted, adding, ‘It’s just a really crazy environment.’
‘When people land on the Glambot, sometimes they don’t know what they’re walking up to. And I’m not just talking about JLo here, I’m talking about a bunch of celebrities in the past.’
He stressed: ‘These celebrities, they’re at work. They’re there to do a thing to promote their show, to be a guest, to be a presenter… they’re working.’
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