Robert Downey Jr brands Krishnan Guru-Murthy a 'syphilitic parasite' after awkward Avengers: Age of Ultron TV interview

 
Hitting back: Robert Downey Jr.
Channel 4
29 April 2015
The Weekender

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Robert Downey Jr. has hit out at Krishnan Guru-Murthy, branding him a “bottom-feeding muckraker” and a “syphilitic parasite”.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron star stormed out of an interview with the Channel 4 news presenter last week after he probed Downey Jr. on his relationship with his father and his past drug use.

Speaking publicly on The Howard Stern Show for the first time about the awkward encounter the 50-year-old actor said he wishes he had "left sooner,” before revealing that he isn’t even aware of Krishnan’s name.

“I'm one of those guys who I'm always assuming the social decorum is in play, and that we're promoting a superhero movie, a lot of kids are going to see it, and that just has nothing to do with your creepy dark agenda," he said.

Pretending to address Guru-Murthy, he continued: "You know what? You are a bottom-feeding muckraker."

Downey Jr. - who plays Tony Stark and his superhero counterpart Iron Man in the latest Marvel movie - said that journalists assume that they can scrutinise actors.

"The assumption is that because you’ve sat down there you’re going to be scrutinised like a kiddy fiddler running for mayor," he said.

"What I have to do in the future is 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 gonna put hands on this somebody and then there's a real story!"

Guru-Murthy defended his line of questioning in a Guardian article earlier this week where he wrote that he does feel "sympathy" for actors as it is "awful to be unable to escape the past", but that his "sympathy runs only up to a point".

He explained: "None of it should have come as a surprise, but I nonetheless offered him two opportunities to say 'I'd rather not talk about this stuff'."

The news presenter continued: "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."

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