Director Michael Bay is one of the hottest names in Hollywood, with a string of blockbusters such as Armageddon and Transformers to his credit. But he didn't fare so well on stage at Samsung's CES keynote in Las Vegas Monday.
Bay was cued up to deliver an endorsement of the content on TVs such as Samsung's new 105-inch curved screen by linking it to his movie career. How exactly, we don't know -- because Bay's teleprompter wasn't working. The director, clearly nervous already, declared that he would "wing it" -- but gave up and walked offstage just seconds later.
You can see Bay's extremely awkward 90 seconds on stage below. The executive who attempts to nudge Bay along is Joe Stinziano, senior VP for Samsung Electronics America.
"I guess live shows aren't my thing," Bay explained on his website shortly after the event. The director also revealed what he was supposed to say next, without elaboration: "I’m doing a special curved screen experience with Samsung and Transformers 4 footage that will be traveling around the world."
Backstage, as Mashable's own Lance Ulanoff discovered, Bay apologized further. He blamed the teleprompter, and was all smiles with Samsung execs:
But there was no stopping the explosion of reactions on the Internet. There's already a GIF of the moment the director turned tail and fled:
Sadly for Samsung, Bay's hasty exit seemed to be the story of the press conference on Twitter. According to social media analytics firm Topsy, tweets mentioning Bay spiked at 15,000 and counting after his appearance.
Most of those tweets, predictably, had some fun at Bay's expense:
For the first time in 20 years, the absence of a script proves to be an actual issue for Michael Bay.— Brian Collins (@BrianWCollins) January 6, 2014
The shame and embarrassment Michael Bay is feeling is probably the same as what I felt after watching Pearl Harbor.— rossm (@rossmccord) January 6, 2014
At first I was feeling sorry for Michael Bay bt then I remembered Armageddon.— Michele Catalano (@inthefade) January 6, 2014
Michael Bay stormed off stage at CES after his teleprompter broke. No script, big explosion & a disappointed audience. Dude's still got it!— Funny Or Die (@funnyordie) January 6, 2014
In Michael Bay's defense, when asked where he got his ideas from the teleprompter just showed a picture of Truck Nutz— Eliza Bayne (@ElizaBayne) January 6, 2014
But at least a few were sympathetic:
I watched the Michael Bay video. People’s standard for a meltdown are pretty low these days. Dude got nervous & politely excused himself.— David Abrams (@CheapyD) January 6, 2014
Hate on Michael Bay, but as someone who does videos millions of people have watched I can tell you it's not easy putting yourself out there.— Colin Moriarty (@notaxation) January 6, 2014
While others posed a question Samsung may want to consider deeply before its next press conference: is it really worth paying a Hollywood star's massive fees for this kind of momentary appearance?
Hoping the Michael Bay Samsung CES press conference freakout finally puts an end to companies trotting out scripted celeb Q&As. Worst.— Seth Porges (@sethporges) January 6, 2014
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