(AP Photo/Bob Galbraith)
The New York Post took a beating on social media after posting rare photos of retired actor Gene Hackman, 94, which lightly mocked his similar outfits.
A post to X, formerly Twitter, was given added “context” on the platform as it accused Hackman of wearing “nearly identical outfits” weeks apart while presenting a split screen of two images taken on the same day.
“The two photos shown with the headline about “identical outfits” are misleading because they are images of Hackman taken during the same day. The outfit worn “weeks earlier” that is referred to involved a completely different shirt and pants; only the vest and hat are the same,” the added context from X readers reads, linking back to a Post story from March showing more rare photos of Hackman.
The actor is generally reclusive and doesn’t grant many interviews since his retirement from film in 2004. He won Academy Awards for 1993’s Unforgiven and 1972’s The French Connection. He was nominated on three other occasions.
In new photos published by the Post, Hackman is wearing a similar flannel shirt and vest as weeks prior, but it is clearly not the same outfit. In the video, Hackman buys a coffee and apple pie at a gas station in Sante Fe, New Mexico, where the actor resides.
Users pounced on the post for making note of a 94-year-old man wearing similar outfits weeks apart and for bothering the legendary actor in the first place. One critic described the Post as “parasites” while others deemed following Hackman around and commenting on his clothes to be simply shameless.
“Gutter press attempts to shame a 94 year old acting legend, Gene Hackman, for what he chooses to wear whilst getting coffee,” actor James Dreyfus wrote on X.
Oh no! Someone washed their clothes and wore them again. Stop the presses.
— Lexi (@penngirl72) April 9, 2024
you should look so good and be so active at 94. WHY are you paying people who hound him? plain disgusting.
— Rani, Last of The Red Hot Boomers (@ShadesOfRani) April 9, 2024
Tell me you have never lived with a man without saying so directly.
We all have like 2-3 outfits and one for church. Pretty sure my 85 year old man still has a pair of pants from 1980.
— Cardinal Curmudgeon (@Gimblin) April 9, 2024
In a 2009 interview with Empire, Hackman, who has authored multiple books since retiring, chalked up his retirement partly to health.
“The straw that broke the camel’s back was actually a stress test that I took in New York,” he said. “The doctor advised me that my heart wasn’t in the kind of shape that I should be putting it under any stress.”
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