It sounds like Harry Styles has been having a weird one, between the unfolding drama surrounding his upcoming film, Don’t Worry Darling, and then having chicken nuggets hucked at him during a concert at Madison Square Garden over the weekend.
The onstage moment was captured by fans in the audience, after Styles briefly paused his show to deal with the nuggety interruption. “Interesting, very interesting approach,” the 28-year-old told the crowd. “Who threw the chicken nugget?” he asked, cheekily lecturing them like schoolchildren. “That’s another chicken nugget!”
“I don’t eat chicken,” Styles continued, after the audience began cheering for him to eat the nugget. “Sorry, I don’t eat meat,” he added, tossing it back into the crowd. “First of all, this is cold, and I’m assuming very old,” he told the increasingly frenzied crowd, picking up the second nugget. “Would you like it back? Do you want it back? Why?!”
“All right, there you go,” he laughed, tossing back the second nugget. “Don’t eat it! Now it’s on the floor. Don’t go looking for it — we’ll get you another nugget, OK? Fear not.”
Mmm, nothing like a cold, old floor nugget — but a floor nugget that Harry Styles touched with his own hands? Nope, that’s still a no from us, dawgs.
Yet, chalk it up to the absurdity of the moment, but it didn’t take long for the incident to go viral, as Harry Styles vs. the chicken nuggets was apparently the kink the internet didn’t know it needed.
This isn’t the first time Styles has had to dodge projectiles on stage. Just months after the singer left One Direction in 2015, he was met with angry fans who threw a Red Bull can, and later a bottle at Styles during a concert.
It’s unclear whether the chicken nugget incident has anything to do with the controversy over his current girlfriend, Don’t Worry Darling director Olivia Wilde. The day before, leaked video footage Wilde had recorded for Shia LaBeouf, the film’s first male lead before Styles came on board, made the rounds on the internet. In the clip, Wilde enraged fans by condescendingly referring to actress Florence Pugh, who stars opposite Styles, by the juvenile nickname “Miss Flo.”
The video, as well as other receipts provided by LeBeouf, seriously contradict Wilde’s claims that she had fired him to protect Pugh and the rest of the cast. It’s unclear whether the two incidents are related — but you sure can’t argue that the timing isn’t coincidental.