Every few years the internet holds a vote nobody asked for, and Chris Pratt keeps losing it. What has changed is who answers back. Katherine Schwarzenegger, his wife since June 2019, does not do press tours about her marriage; she does short, pointed sentences, and she saves them for the moments when the pile-on gets personal. Here is how she has handled the haters so far, and why I think her strategy works better than his.
“One has to go”: the poll that started it
On October 17, 2020, TV writer Amy Berg tweeted a photo of four Hollywood Chrises (Pratt, Evans, Hemsworth and Pine) with the caption “One has to go.” She later said it was a play on a Halloween candy meme. Twitter treated it as a referendum, and Pratt “won” it: thousands of replies named him, mostly over guesses about his politics and an old claim that he attended a church with anti-LGBTQ views.
His Marvel colleagues answered for him. James Gunn wrote that Pratt “is the best dude in the world” and asked people to “stop assuming what he believes, politically or in any other way, because he’s a Christian.” Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. followed. Katherine went to the comments of an E! News post that asked fans to pick the worst Chris: “Is this really what we need? There’s so much going on in the world and people struggling in so many ways. Being mean is so yesterday. There’s enough room to love all these guys.” My read: of everything written that week, hers was the only line that would also work on a playground, which is roughly the level of the debate.
The “healthy daughter” post
Some context first. Pratt was married to actress Anna Faris for eight years before they split in 2017, and they co-parent their son Jack, who was born two months premature in 2012 and is now 14. In November 2021 Pratt posted a tribute to Katherine that thanked her for “a beautiful, healthy daughter.” Part of the internet read it as a dig at Faris and Jack.
Pratt stayed quiet until Men’s Health in June 2022, and then he did not hold back: the backlash “really f***ing bothered” him and he “cried about it.” His real worry was Jack: “My son’s gonna read that one day. He’s nine. And it’s etched in digital stone.” Whatever you think of the caption, that is a father talking, not a publicist. Katherine, notably, never commented on this one, and I suspect that was the point.
Katherine’s rule: see it, don’t feed it
In early 2023 she explained her method to The New York Times. Her mother, Maria Shriver, warned her about the never-ending trap of correcting the record, and Katherine had practice: she grew up “hearing people say certain things about my parents, my siblings, my extended family.” About her husband she was brief: “I see what people say. But I just know that it’s so far from the reality.” She also noted that before Pratt, “I wasn’t getting questions about my love life or who I was dating.”
That is the Kennedy-Schwarzenegger school of press management in two sentences: acknowledge, decline, move on. It is less satisfying than a clapback and far more durable.
@katherineschwarzenegger I am beyond proud of my amazing wife Katherine! Her creativity and love for storytelling shines through in her upcoming children's book “Good Night, Sister.” She has put so much effort and heart into this project and I know it will be a delightful and touch…
Who Katherine Schwarzenegger is, beyond “his wife”
Katherine, 36, is the eldest child of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver and a children’s book author whose titles include Maverick and Me and The Gift of Forgiveness. Pratt is 47. They married in Montecito in June 2019 and have three children: Lyla (2020), Eloise (2022) and Ford Fitzgerald, born in November 2024 and announced with a joint post signed “Love, Katherine and Chris.”
Yes, he had to ask Arnold for her hand first, and he has been asked about it on camera ever since:
2026: dollhouses, anniversaries and a house nobody buys
This year the couple’s public life has been mostly domestic. In March Katherine posted a clip of Pratt sanding a dollhouse he built for the girls, captioned “When you have a golden retriever husband >>>”. In June she marked their seventh anniversary: “Seven years! Happy anniversary my angel face! I love you.” In January they spoke together at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ Ethical Leadership Lunch. And in August TMZ reported they had relisted their Pacific Palisades house for close to $20 million, down from $32 million in 2023, on the fifth attempt. (Somewhere a realtor is also being told there’s enough room to love all these buyers.)
His work keeps him in the crossfire anyway: Mercy opened at No. 1 in January to poor reviews, he voiced Mario again in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie in April, he hosts a documentary on St. Peter’s tomb made with the Vatican, and The Terminal List season 2 lands on Prime Video on October 21.
Please don’t call him Chris
One more thing the “worst Chris” crowd missed: he barely answers to the name. On SiriusXM’s Pop Culture Spotlight in 2022 he said friends and family call him “Pratt” or “CP.” With four famous Chrises in the same franchise, I would opt out too.
My take
Six years after the poll, the score is clear. The internet keeps voting; Katherine keeps posting dollhouses and anniversary captions, and the marriage keeps not being the story people wanted it to be. “Being mean is so yesterday” sounded naive in 2020. In 2026 it reads like the only prediction that came true.
Sources
- Katherine Schwarzenegger on Instagram, September 2026
- Chris Pratt on Instagram (@prattprattpratt)
- Katherine Schwarzenegger on Instagram (@katherineschwarzenegger)
- Extra: Was Chris Pratt nervous asking Arnold Schwarzenegger for Katherine’s hand?
- TODAY: Katherine Schwarzenegger defends Chris Pratt after he’s named worst celebrity Chris (Oct 21, 2020; quotes from Gunn, Ruffalo, Downey Jr.)
- HollywoodLife: Chris Pratt on the “healthy daughter” backlash (Men’s Health interview, June 2022)
- Fox News: Katherine Schwarzenegger speaks out on criticism of Chris Pratt (The New York Times interview, Feb 2023)
- NBC: Katherine Schwarzenegger welcomes baby No. 3 with Chris Pratt
- Fox News via WFMD: the dollhouse video (Mar 31, 2026)
- HELLO!: seventh anniversary tribute (June 9, 2026)
- Angelus News: Ethical Leadership Lunch 2026 speakers
- TMZ: Pratt and Schwarzenegger list L.A. home (Aug 11, 2026)
- TheWrap: Mercy box office opening
- Vatican News: a documentary about Peter’s tomb guided by Chris Pratt
- Prime Video announcement: The Terminal List season 2 premiere date
- Capital FM: Chris Pratt on why he isn’t called Chris
