Robert Downey Jr. did not have a great visit to SiriusXM’s new Los Angeles studio on Monday. The Iron Man star said he was involved in a minor altercation before his interview with Howard Stern, in the studio’s green room. Downey got into an argument with a “little nebbish big wig.”
Downey told Stern he was just standing outside his studio, watching a television screen when the executive suddenly told him to get “out of the way,” reports The Blast. The actor said he was just watching the television with everyone else. The executive then yelled, “Who the f– are you?”
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The actor was upset by the outburst. “I’m going to have to light this guy up,” Downey jokingly told Stern.
Downey said the man likely has an inflated ego, adding that some people “with certain status” think they are ” the master of their environment.” He added that Los Angeles is filled with “status games.”
Since Downey just starred in The Avengers: Endgame, the highest-grossing movie of all time, it seems unlikely that he would go unrecognized. However, Downey explained that he recently shaved his head, which could explain why no one realized who he was. He said Adam Levine and Jimmy Kimmel had to do a double-take when they saw him in the green room.
Stern told his audience that Downey is a martial arts master, so he could have “killed” someone in the green room if he wanted to. But Downey assured Stern the altercation never got physical and Downey never named the executive who snapped at him.
Stern was in Los Angeles to open SiriusXM’s studio there. He also interviewed Kimmel, Jennifer Aniston and Arnold Schwarzenegger during his first show on the West Coast.
While Downey is thought to be done with the Marvel Cinematic Universe after his performance in Endgame, the actor is rumored to be making an appearance in Black Widow, starring Scarlett Johansson as the title character. In September, Deadline reported that Downey is slated to appear in the movie, which opens on May 1, 2020.
However, during the summer, Downey told Sam Jones in Off Camera he plans to take time separating himself from Tony Stark.
“I had an incredible ten-year run that was creatively satisfying. It was very, very, very hard work and I dug very deep, but I have not been forced to explore the new frontier of what is my creative and personal life after this,” Downey said.
He later added, “By creating and associating and synergizing with Tony Stark and the Marvel Universe..and being a good company man but also being a little off-kilter and being creative and then getting into all these other partnerships, it was a time when it’s like…[how] owners start looking like their pets… occasionally you would pull back from it and go, ‘Let me stop, let me get off the teet of this archetype and let me see where I stand.’ And you can feel really buffeted, you can get really spun out by it.”
Photo credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
