She couldn’t resist! Gwyneth Paltrow trolled Ethan Hawke for his resurfaced viral interaction with Rihanna at an NBA game.
Hawke, 52, shared the throwback photos — which depict him and his son, Levon, 21, sitting courtside next to Rihanna, 34, at a 2015 All-Stars match — via Instagram on Monday, February 13.
“After Rihanna’s brilliant [Super Bowl LVII] half time performance, I’m hoping my son can find it in his heart to forgive a Dad for taking his moment,” the Before Sunrise star captioned the post. The snaps show Hawke seemingly switching seats with his son in order to chat with the “Umbrella” songstress.
Although the Texas native received ample support in the comments — Andy Cohen dubbed the images the “BEST PIC[S] EVER” — Paltrow had some constructive criticism for Hawke.
“Could you sit up straight for god’s sake? You’re sitting next to Rihanna!” the Goop founder — who costarred with Hawke in 1998’s Great Expectations — quipped in the comments.
Alyssa Milano also called out the Black Phone actor for his slouching.
“Not sure I would have gone with this posture whilst sitting next to a goddess,” she wrote.
Hawke and Paltrow previously raised eyebrows with another playful social media interaction. In June 2022, the Boyhood actor shared a carousel of throwback shots with his Dead Poets Society costars to celebrate the film’s 33rd anniversary.
“I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way,” he wrote in the caption, referencing a famous quote from the 1989 drama.
Paltrow commented on the post: “Best movie EVER, I wish I had made out with more of you than I did.”
Hawke cheekily replied, “We all wish the same.”
The Carnegie Mellon alum has been married to wife Ryan Shawhughes since 2008, with whom he shares daughters Indiana, 15, and Clementine, 12. He is also dad to Levon and daughter Maya, 24, with ex-wife Uma Thurman. Hawke and the Pulp Fiction actress divorced in 2005 after seven years of marriage.
The Reality Bites actor opened up about how his “personal life fell apart” following the divorce during an August 2018 interview with GQ.
“I don’t know if you feel this way, but when you’re depressed, it’s really easy to see everything that is fake about other people and life, and I just started seeing all that. How phony celebrity was, how phony everything is. You channel your inner Holden Caulfield, you know?” he said at the time.
Hawke’s daughter Maya, for her part, has hinted at her parents’ divorce in her music.
“I imagine my mom and dad / Loosely neckin’ in the back of a taxi cab / I’d give everything I’ll ever have to see them happy / Kissin’ just like that,” the Stranger Things star sings in her song “Driver,” released in September 2022. “And oh, I can watch it in the movies / I don’t wanna see it that crafted and clear / Wanna be the pervert driver / Gazin’ at them through a tilted mirror.”
Elsewhere in the song, she croons: “Happy that my father, he got free / That even though it hurt me / He can be whoever the hell he wants to be.”
