The Daily Beast reports:
Star Trek star William Shatner has taken to Twitter to trade blows with journalists who called him out for hosting a new show on the Kremlin’s notorious state-funded network, RT.
Earlier this week, the 90-year-old Canadian actor—known for taking on the legendary role Captain James Kirk in the Star Trek saga—announced he would be hosting a new general talk show on the American branch of RT called “I Don’t Understand,” where he’ll be posing questions to guests on a variety topics. The show is set to debut later this month.
Alexey Kovalev, an investigative editor for Meduza—one of the most popular independent Russian-language news outlets—had some choice words for Shatner on his work with the network.
Read the full article.
Just so that there’s no controversy about the nature of their relationship and to preempt the Larry King excuse (“I’m not working for Russian state propaganda, I’m just licensing my show to them”), RT’s Margarita Simonyan declares: “Captain Kirk has come over to the good side :)” https://t.co/OsiLC4KuPH pic.twitter.com/DzH5SRpIwV
— Alexey Kovalyov (@Alexey__Kovalev) July 1, 2021
Be under no illusion, @WilliamShatner: if you’re taking their money, they won’t let you keep your hands clean. That’s the point. They’ll now use your name and face to whitewash everything else they’re doing and I’m going to make sure that you know exactly what it is.
— Alexey Kovalyov (@Alexey__Kovalev) July 1, 2021
Perhaps instead of rebuking me with facts that have zero influence on my show; a better use of your time @Alexey__Kovalev would be to move???♂️ It would seem that you being in Moscow means you are directly supporting via taxes the very regime you are berating me about.#Hypocrite ?
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) July 1, 2021
Then @meduza_en should find better editors who can spend time on real issues & not berate an actor in a distribution deal, right? All he’s doing is showing how petty his professionalism is. He should watch the first episode & then tell me his thoughts if he thinks it’s propaganda https://t.co/I5nv2rBT4M
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) July 1, 2021
If you are berating me that the RT network picked up distribution rights to my show as a horrible thing while you are sitting in Russia, contributing to the economy & paying taxes to them: it is hypocritical. https://t.co/dJohJUWAhN
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) July 1, 2021
Well then go tell your government’s taxation bureau that you don’t want your two kopecks to go towards TV https://t.co/ZAnyS8yB6C
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) July 1, 2021
If my having a TV show distributed by RT America causes him to go on a tirade about how I’m somehow a pawn of Putin; then isn’t his very presence in Moscow where he’s contributing to that economy, giving his tax money to that government exponentially worse than a TV show???♂️? https://t.co/NKsAy7EAlx
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) July 1, 2021
So if I speak to a NASA scientist about Ion Drives & the theory behind them to get a better understanding of how it works; that is propaganda?????♂️? May I suggest listening to people other than Mr. Colavito or maybe watching the first episode on July 12th to see the premise?? https://t.co/auFNjXzuxx
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) June 30, 2021