James Gunn defends Chris Pratt as backlash against Guardians of the Galaxy star continues

Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn has jumped to the defence of Chris Pratt amid continued backlash against the actor.

Over the years, Pratt has faced criticism for his alleged association with evangelical church Hillsong, the unsubtantiated claim he voted for Donald Trump in the US election and a controversial post he shared about his daughter, Lyla.

In the post, the Jurassic World Dominion star, 42, said he was grateful to wife Katherine Schwarzenegger for giving him a “gorgeous healthy daughter”.

Many felt that the post was insensitive to his ex-wife Anna Faris and their son Jack, who was born prematurely. Faris previously said that Jack weighed just three pounds and 12 ounces at birth and spent his first month in the NICU. According to People, he was born with severe brain bleeding.

After a Men’s Health interview with Pratt was published earlier this week, in which he discussed the criticism and denied ever going to Hillsong, Gunn defended Pratt over repeated claims he’s the “worst” Hollywood Chris.

“It absolutely infuriates me,” Gunn said in the article. “Chris is unspeakably kind to people; he goes out of his way to help kids. He’s an especially loving father. And there’s a lot of stuff that people have literally just made up about him —about his politics, about who he is, about what he believes of other people, you know?”

Gunn has since doubled down on these criticisms on Twitter. When a person branded Pratt a Trump supporter, the director replied: “Will you guys please quit making up s***?”

When one Twitter user asked Gunn where the claims that Pratt attended Hillsong originated from, the filmmaker added: “People who assume s***, and then someone else takes that and exaggerates it, and then someone else exaggerates that, and then you listen to someone without reading about what the truth is and spread the lies on Twitter.”

Hillchurch was accused of being “anti-gay” by actor Elliot Page in 2019.

In reference to the claim that Pratt had disrespected Faris and their son, Gunn said: “He said he was grateful for his healthy daughter and somehow people, apparently like you, tried to weaponise that against his awesome son who was born premature.”

This isn’t the first time Gunn has defended his Guardians of the Galaxy lead star.

Pratt can currently be seen in Prime Video series The Terminal List (find The Independent’s review here), and will be in Thor: Love & Thunder, which is released on 8 July.