A new career path? Tom Hiddleston left some fans extremely confused after he appeared in a Chinese advertisement for Centrum women’s vitamins.
Hiddleston, 38, shared the commercial on his Weibo — a Chinese social media platform — account. He captioned the clip, “Here’s something special for you at breakfast time. Wishing all my friends in China a great start to their day! #CentrumUS.”
The Avengers actor addresses an unseen person behind the camera throughout the video. “Hey! Morning,” he says while frying eggs and making eye contact with viewers. “I finished early so I thought I’d pop back and make you breakfast.”
Hiddleston then presents a colorful plate of food and picks up a bottle of the vitamins before gushing, “You look great.” The commercial ends with the Kong: Skull Island star putting on his coat and explaining that he will “be a bit busy for the next few weeks.”
He continues before walking out of the house: “I’ll make it up to you soon, I promise.”
Some people couldn’t help but express their discomfort at the ad online. “Am I the only one who watches it and feels a little cringy [sic],” one fan tweeted. “He seems a little awkward, I’m not sure he was fully comfortable with the idea.”
A second added, “I love him dearly but how utterly sexist is this advert?!?!? ‘You look great by the way’… f–k off!!!! But also don’t because you’re Tom Hiddleston… and you know what… I’ll just buy some Centrum and sit here for weeks looking good ‘till you decide to come home.”
However, other fans defended the British star. “At first it made me uncomfortable but I’m coming around to the idea that Tom Hiddleston making me weird vegetable-blackberry-fried-egg breakfasts and being tenderly concerned for my wellbeing would actually be kind of nice,” a third Twitter user wrote.
Another chimed in, “Tom Hiddleston’s ad for Centrum IS MADE FOR ASIAN MARKETS. If you’re not in China and think the ad is weird, don’t worry, IT’S NOT FOR YOU. Leave it alone, go eat McDonald’s or summ.”