On Monday afternoon, Michael Bay had a meltdown during an appearance at Las Vegas’s Consumer Electronics Show, where he was helping Samsung introduce one of its fancy new TVs: The disaster-loving director flubbed a line, his voice began shaking and, after an awkward stretch of sighing and pausing, he ducked his head and walked off stage. When Business Insider asked Bay what went wrong, he replied, “The teleprompter.” The episode was weird enough to be some kind of publicity stunt, though it’s entirely possible that Bay is just really uncomfortable with public speaking.
UPDATE: Bay took to his personal blog shortly after leaving the stage to state the obvious: “Wow! I just embarrassed myself at CES!” Here’s his full, surprisingly candid mea culpa:
Wow! I just embarrassed myself at CES – I was about to speak for Samsung for this awesome Curved 105-inch UHD TV. I rarely lend my name to any products, but this one is just stellar. I got so excited to talk, that I skipped over the Exec VP’s intro line and then the teleprompter got lost. Then the prompter went up and down — then I walked off. I guess live shows aren’t my thing.
But I’m doing a special curved screen experience with Samsung and Transformers 4 footage that will be traveling around the world.
Michael
