Spit-gate update: Chris Pine reveals what really happened between him and Harry Styles

Chris Pine is clearing the air about what happened between him and Harry Styles during the infamous “spit-gate.”

Rumors sparked in September that Harry had spit on his Don’t Worry Darling co-star at the movie’s Venice Film Festival premiere. Pine’s team dismissed the reports, while Harry used the rumor as a punch line at one of his Madison Square Garden shows.

Esquire chatted with Pine about the alleged incident, to which the actor insisted, “Harry did not spit on me. Harry’s a very, very kind guy.”

While Pine agreed the viral video in question does makes it “look, indeed, like Harry spit on me,” he said what actually happened was an exchange of words.

So, what did Harry say? According to Pine: “I think he said, ‘It’s just words, isn’t it?'”

Apparently that was a running joke between the two, as the actor explained, “We’re all jet-lagged, we’re all trying to answer these questions, and sometimes when you’re doing these press things, your brain goes befuddled and you start speaking gibberish,” he explained. “So we had a joke — ‘It’s just words.'”

Shortly after the “spit-gate” rumors took off, Harry joked during his September 7 show he had “popped very quickly to Venice to spit on Chris Pine.”