Jason Bateman called out media outlets for publishing “clickbait” articles, mocking a story that he says misreported his journey to sobriety.
The “DTF St. Louis” star shared his thoughts on the matter during his Wednesday visit on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” where host Jimmy Kimmel said a report about Bateman making a “rare” red carpet appearance with his wife Amanda Anka stood out to him.
Bateman first clarified that he’s never been to any film premiere without his wife by his side in the last 27 years. He then proceeded to criticize some media platform’s “clickbait” strategy, sharing an incident in which a news outlets picked up his comments about his sobriety journey and re-framed it by depicting his wife as his savior.
“In today’s media climate, these people, they like clickbait,” Bateman began. “I did a magazine interview, a long-form thing, and it covered me from 10 to now. I’m three years from 60, so there’s a lot of stuff in there, and a part of what’s in there is I like to party during my 20s and stuff, and then put that stuff down when I was 30, 31, something like that. So, that’s like 20, over 25 years ago. Of course the headline in these fringe sites, ’cause we don’t talk to those sites, so they got to look at these articles and cherrypick these little things that could be clickbait. “
He continued, mocking a headline from one of the supposed articles he’s seen reporting on the subject.
“‘Bateman Gets Sober Through the Help of His Wife.’ Well, I got to click on that. ‘I didn’t know Bateman had a problem,’” Bateman said sarcastically. “‘I didn’t know that he was suffering and thank God he’s pulled out of it.’ Of course, you click and in the first sentence you see that it’s [clickbait], and then you feel like an idiot for clicking on it.”
When Kimmel asked Bateman how anyone else could refrain from clicking when even he couldn’t, Bateman said “I didn’t need to … I was tempted to just to see those old, big bloated pictures of me when I was using.”
