Known Italian impersonator Chris Pratt was stung in the eye by a bee after attempting to "control bees," the actor revealed on Instagram.
Pratt explained that he's been following a "bee lady" on Instagram and attempted to follow her techniques on his own. (Not in a controlled environment, mind you — he felt inspired when he "saw a beehive" and decided to take action.)
"She's so cool and brave and she goes in front of these hives of bees and says, 'They're very calm today. I'm going to remove the bee, I'm going to use my bare hands to sift through the bees and look for the queen,'" Pratt explained in his video. "So it's built up this false sense of security in me to where I said, 'I think I can control bees, too.'"
Pratt begins the front-facing video wearing sunglasses before removing them to reveal a swollen eyelid. Someone with Pratt even tried to warn the 43-year-old actor: "The man standing next to me said, 'Be careful, there's bees,' and I said, 'These bees look very calm.'"
Pratt, who is not a trained beekeeper, vacillated between displaying reverence for the Instagram beekeeper and blaming her for his self-inflicted misfortune. His Instagram caption reads: "@texasbeeworks you inspire me!" In his video, though, Pratt places some blame on @texasbeeworks. "So, anyways, fuck that bee lady," he says while revealing the injury.
The @texasbeeworks account belongs to Erika Thompson, a Texas-based beekeeper. Thompson has amassed a sizable audience on Instagram, where she currently has more than 993,000 followers, and an even larger one on TikTok, where 11.3 million people follow her. Notably, Thompson's videos are nearly all dedicated to saving bee colonies — not to messing around with random hives just for the gag.
​Thompson weighed in on Pratt's injury in a comment under his video. "Wait—so now you're going to be a plumber and a beekeeper @prattprattpratt?!" Thompson wrote. "If you leave saving the bees to me and other professionals, you can focus on saving the Princess, Mario."
Thompson is right, of course: beekeeping is best left to professionals. But then again, Pratt's latest role has him impersonating an Italian plumber without much of said plumber's characteristic Italian accent — so we can't say we're all that surprised he thinks he can do anything he wants.
Photo via Getty/ Frazer Harrison