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Director Michael Bay's onstage meltdown steals the show at Samsung CES press event

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While Samsung was hoping to drum up hype for its latest curved television sets, plans to have blockbuster director Michael Bay promote its products backfired when the "Transformers" filmmaker — known for making movies with large explosions — caused a scene of his own, abruptly walking offstage mid-presentation.


Director Michael Bay abruptly walked off Samsung's stage on Monday. Photo via ABC News.

Bay was hired by Samsung to help promote its new lineup of high-definition television sets for 2014. The director took to the stage Monday at a Samsung press event and began talking about his job as a director before technical issues marred the presentation.

Clearly flustered by the lack of a working teleprompter, Bay first attempted to improvise his onstage dialogue with Joe Stinziano, executive vice president of Samsung America.

"The type is all off, sorry, but I'll just wing this," Bay first said after the teleprompter began to fail.

The director then tried to continue but appeared at a loss for words. Stinziano attempted to get Bay back on subject by asking him what he thought of the new, massive 105-inch curved television set behind him.

"Excuse me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Bay said as he abruptly walked off the CES stage in Las Vegas.

"OK, ladies and gentlemen, let's thank Michael Bay for joining us," Stinziano said after Bay trotted off. Left alone onstage, the Samsung executive said: "Welcome to Vegas. It's a live show, folks."

Bay, an action-oriented director who has helmed three "Transformers" movies and other blockbusters like "The Rock," "Bad Boys" and "Armageddon," later took to his official website to express embarrassment over the incident, which managed to gain more publicity than Samsung's products themselves.

"Wow! I just embarrassed myself at CES —  I was about to speak for Samsung for this awesome Curved 105-inch UHD TV," the post to Bay's website reads. "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."

Though Bay's onstage appearance proved to be a failure, the director said he's still going to be promoting Samsung's new curved television sets in an around-the-world tour. The ultra-high-definition TVs that will be put on display will feature footage from Bay's upcoming film "Transformers 4."



137 Comments

crowley 15 Years · 10431 comments

Not sure which association is more toxic, Samsung being associated with tasteless, thuggish, leering scumbag Michael Bay, or Michael Bay being associated with tasteless, thuggish, leering scumbags Samsung. I guess it's a pretty good pairing.

anantksundaram 18 Years · 20391 comments

I think 2014 will be the year of Samsung Meltdown.

jungmark 13 Years · 6927 comments

Oh gosh! So basically this Sammy unit will be loud, over the top, and serves no purpose.

blackgts2002 14 Years · 8 comments

In other news... Apple?!?!?? What is this, Samsung insider?

greginprague 13 Years · 492 comments

Why'd it take AI so long to get an article up on this?  There were real news sources posting video and articles 14 hours ago.  I thought AI must be listening to comments from people on other Sammy focused articles about how this has nothing to do with Apple and shouldn't be on the site (not that I agree with that sentiment).