Gladiator II director Ridley Scott has hit out at claims made by Denzel Washington that a gay kiss was removed from the film.
The Oscar-winning actor made the claims in an interview promoting the long-awaited sequel last week.
“I actually kissed a man in the film but they took it out, they cut it, I think they got chicken,” he told Gayety.
“I kissed a guy full on the lips and I guess they weren’t ready for that yet. I killed him about five minutes later. It’s Gladiator. It’s the kiss of death.”
After the comments created uproar, Washington appeared to dilute his earlier comments saying that the kiss had in fact just been a “peck”.
“It really is much ado about nothing,” the actor told Variety on Monday (18 November). “They’re making more of it than it was. I kissed him on his hands, I gave him a peck and I killed him.”
But according to Scott, the kiss never took place at all.
“He kills the Senator, is that what you mean?” he told Variety when asked about the omission.
”Denzel said he kissed a man on the lips but it didn’t make the final cut,” said the interviewer.
“No, that’s bulls**t,” Scott insisted. “It was a senator.”
Meanwhile, another man off camera is heard saying, “We even went back and looked at the film, there was never (a gay kiss).”
Scott explained, “They never did. They acted the moment and it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen because they acted the moment as if he (did).”
Paul Mescal also revealed that an improvised kiss between him and Pedro Pascal was also removed from the movie.
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“There was a moment when we were rehearsing my fight scene with Pedro, and I had an idea towards the end of the scene to kiss Pedro on the forehead,” Mescal told Entertainment Weekly.
“I did it in one of the takes, and then we’re getting the radio messages back to Ridley [in video village], and I was like, ‘Ridley: Kiss on the forehead, did you like it? Yay or nay?’”
“There was radio silence for a second. His radio crackles back, and [Ridley] goes, ‘I’m afraid I did.’”