Please do not send Neil Patrick Harris birthday gifts, Twitter
After starting off the week annoyingly, Neil Patrick Harris decided on Wednesday to double down, committing to full-bore obnoxiousness.
The inciting incident involved the TV star and perennial award show host failing to recognize fellow famous person, My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend creator Rachel Bloom. During Bloom’s stint as backstage correspondent at the Tonys on Sunday night, Harris tweeted out an unkind assessment of “the woman in the top hat.” Bloom hit back with a polite-but-pointed rebuttal, and loads of mutual followers couldn’t tell whether the awkward moment was a bit. It wasn’t.
I’m a big fan of yours. We’ve met numerous times and my husband, Dan Gregor, wrote for “How I Met Your Mother” for 5 years. Notably, he wrote the episode where your character finally meets his father.
— Rachel Bloom (@Racheldoesstuff) June 11, 2018
Rather than apologize for his blunder, Harris thanked Bloom for the reminder, and went about the rest of his evening ignoring the wrath of My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend hive. Considering the glut of morning-after headlines that chronicled the incident, most people in Harris’s shoes probably would’ve kept a low profile for the next few days. Perhaps Harris would have done so, as well, had his 45th birthday not been so imminent.
Because there was absolutely nothing else going on in the world Wednesday morning, Harris chose that moment to solicit birthday gifts from his 27 million Twitter followers.
What I want for my birthday, Part One: anything designed by @elonmusk, or any intel on what future technologies he’s creating. Cough, cough, 2 day shipping with @amazonprimenow, cough!
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 13, 2018
What I want for my birthday, Part Three: automatons. Moving mechanical marvels, either vintage or contemporary, like this from the amazing Thomas Kuntz. Awesome. https://t.co/LxSMcBbzPb
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 13, 2018
Things I want for my birthday, Part Four: a melodica. It’s a keyboard that you play by breathing into a tube on the end. Also known as a ‘blow organ’ but, umm, I’m, err, probably better off calling it a melodica. https://t.co/QCsvciaBOV
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 13, 2018
Had he just sent out one message, and made it sound remotely joke-like, Harris could have cut the obnoxious factor down by at least half. The specific gift requests, though, and the inclusion of a functional UPS Store address, suggest that this is indeed a wealthy working actor in his mid-40s hitting up fans for gifts on his special day. (I, for one, will enjoy imagining what sort of “gifts” non-fans sending to his PO box.) Despite the fact that the button that could text his publicist is probably very close to the Twitter app on Harris’s phone, he ignored the former and went straight to the latter, capping off a whirlwind half-week of abject obnoxiousness. On the bright side, however, what Harris did is still less obnoxious than your friend who celebrates their “birthday month.”
UPDATE: Harris has just issued an apology to Rachel Bloom for his original tweet.
Sincere apologies to @Racheldoesstuff for my Tony tweet. I failed to research her before pressing ‘send’, and what I thought was a funny comment in our living room must have been far from funny to read, backstage, mid show. As a performer and a parent, I should have know better.
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 13, 2018
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