Michael Bay, Attorney Refute Claims That Director Had Been Charged With Killing A Pigeon

Director and man whose movies make me dizzy, Michael Bay, is fighting back after being accused of killing a pigeon while shooting a movie in Italy.

TheWrap published a report that Bay had been charged in Italy with killing a pigeon. This was alleged to have happened while shooting the Netflix movie 6 Underground. They claimed that a homing pigeon had been killed by a dolly.

Believe it or not, in Italy, pigeons are a protected species. That means that it's illegal to harm, kill or capture wild pigeons. Even if it wasn't Bay who ran over the pigeon with the dolly, TheWrap reported that he was held responsible because he was directing the reproduction.

“I am a well-known animal lover and major animal activist,” Bay told TheWrap in a statement. “No animal involved in the production was injured or harmed. Or on any other production I’ve worked on in the past 30 years.”

The incident was alleged to have occurred during the production of Netflix's film, 6 Underground. (Photo by Christopher Jue/Getty Images for Netflix)

Bay's Attorney Slams TheWrap's Article

Now, Bay's attorney, Mathew Rosengart, has penned a legal letter saying that the Transformers director was never accused — let alone charged — with killing a pigeon.

Rosengart says that before publishing the story, TheWrap had been made aware of “video evidence rebutting these allegations and demonstrating that at no time was any animal harmed, let alone ‘killed.’”

However, Rosengart did concede that Bay is facing another charge. He wrote that it "concerns whether, in his capacity as the film’s director, Mr. Bay failed to properly supervise crew members (whom he did not even have the ability to hire) responsible for handling the animals on set.”

Rosengart's letter said that Bay wants to fight the charges rather than settle with authorities.

Bay echoed this in a statement to TheWrap. “I was offered by the Italian authorities a chance to settle this matter by paying a small fine, but I declined to do so because I would not plead guilty to having harmed an animal,” Bay added.

The attorney concluded by issuing TheWrap a demand for an "immediate retraction or correction of your story.

Netflix released the Ryan Reynolds-led film several years ago. They declined to provide a comment on the matter for TheWrap's initial story.

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