The world is no stranger to cringey and incredibly awkward press junket interviews, but this one really takes the biscuit. Three quarters of the new Fantastic Four, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Jamie Bell were being interviews by Jason Bailey and Southside Steve of the Rock 100.5 Morning Show in Atlanta, and things got off on the wrong foot when the pair couldn’t get their heads around the fact that Mara and Jordan were playing brother and sister, because of their different skin colour, uttering the immortal words, “you’re white and you’re black. How does that happen". Yes, this again. While it has actually been explained away by the fact that Sue Storm is adopted in this iteration, Jordan, who has answered this question time and time again, made a good attempt to explain it to his interviewers, saying, “There is a whole bunch of family dynamics it can be without the obvious adoption”.
Through the whole sibling talk, Mara and Jordan played it cool, while Bell just looked on bemused, laughing it off, but the awkwardness didn’t stop there. The two hosts then turned their attention to Mara’s hair, asking why she cut it, because, in their words, “You’re way, way hot. Why’d you cut the hair”. Then they get into talking about her toes, because one of them is evidently a toe guy. Look, it’s better if you just watch the entire interview below. It needs to be seen to be believed.
Bailey was later interviewed by Buzzed about what happened, but instead of defending himself, he somehow made it worse:
Look, not a huge fan of these controlled 5-7 minute interview junkets they run in the first place but I was curious about the brother and sister thing. You have a white sister and black brother wouldn’t you want to know how that happened? I did. ... My partner’s (Southside Steve) conversation about Kate’s hair is something that came up while Michael B Jordan took a phone call so I think they were kind of just going back forth in a playful way. As for him complimenting her toes and why people are upset about that…sorry…no idea. Steve likes girl’s toes. People should be appreciative when they get complimented.
