So much for that apology! Jeremy Renner stopped by Conan on Monday, May 4, and stood by a controversial joke that he made and subsequently apologized for just last month.
The Avengers: Age of Ultron star, 44, first raised eyebrows in April when he and costar Chris Evans called Scarlett Johansson‘s Avengers character a “slut” in an interview with UK publication Digital Spy. The two actors were discussing Black Widow’s interest in various superheroes and Renner spat, “She’s a slut… just flirting with everybody… leading everybody on.”
Conan O’Brien asked Renner about the incident, which the American Hustle star walked back just days after he said it. “I am sorry that this tasteless joke about a fictional character offended anyone,” he said in a statement at the time. “It was not meant to be serious in any way. Just poking fun during an exhausting and tedious press tour.”
While he seemed somewhat remorseful after the backlash, the Oscar-nominated star couldn’t quite keep up the act on Conan.
“It was a joke — off-color or whatever — but yeah, I’m unapologetic about a lot of things and I got in a lot of Internet trouble!” he said on the talk show. “I guess that’s a thing now you can get in.”
Said trouble took off when Twitter users vehemently called Renner out, criticizing him for “slut-shaming” and making a “sexist” and “misogynistic” joke.
“I was asked the question like, ‘So, you know, Black Widow’s been linked to Hawkeye, Iron Man, Bruce Banner, and Captain America,'” Renner, who plays the Avengers‘ Hawkeye continued, naming other characters from the action film. “‘So what do you think about that?’ I’m like, well I said, ‘It sounds like she’s a slut.'”
“Now, mind you, I was talking about a fictional character and fictional behavior, but, Conan, if you slept with four of the six Avengers, no matter how much fun you had, you’d be a slut,” he added. “Just saying… I’d be a slut!”
Watch Renner stand by his controversial joke in the video above.
