"Guardians of the Galaxy" director James Gunn is defending Chris Pratt in the face of social media chatter that he should be replaced as the star of the franchise.
It all began over the weekend with a tweet suggesting that Marvel should replace Pratt with Patrick Wilson.
Some on Twitter piled on, turning the conversation to Pratt's alleged association with a church that has supported gay conversion therapy.
Gunn was not having it and tweeted in response, "For what? Because of your made-up, utterly-false beliefs about him?"
"For something that someone else told you about him that's not true?," Gunn tweeted. "Chris Pratt would never be replaced as Star-Lord but, if he ever was, we would all be going with him."
Gunn reiterated his support for Pratt in another response.
"I know the church he currently goes to," Gunn tweeted. "Do you? (The answer is you don't, but you heard from someone who heard from someone who heard from someone where he goes to church, so decided, "yeah, okay, I'll believe this terrible thing I heard online about this celebrity!")"
In 2019, Pratt denied the claim that he was a member of an anti-LGBTQ2S+ church.
"It has recently been suggested that I belong to a church which 'hates a certain group of people' and is 'infamously anti --LGBTQ2S+,'" Pratt posted on social media. "Nothing could be further from the truth. I go to a church that opens their doors to absolutely everyone."
Pratt supported Gunn in 2018 after the director was fired from the "Guardians" franchise after a number of controversial tweets from his past resurfaced.
Gunn was later reinstated.
