Performative or Nah? Jon Bernthal Kept His Hand In a Fist At the Spider-Man: Brand New Day Premiere So He Wouldn’t Touch Sadie Sink’s Back
by Chrissy Stockton · Thought CatalogUpdated 9 minutes ago, August 13, 2026
Something small caught everyone’s attention at the Spider-Man: Brand New Day premiere: Jon Bernthal had his arm around co-star Sadie Sink, 24, but kept his hand balled into a fist the whole time, so it never actually touched her back.
A close-up of the moment spread fast on X after a user tied the gesture to Bernthal’s history. He came up boxing and brawling around Washington, D.C., got kicked out of more than one school, and came close enough to prison that he credits therapy and anger management with turning his life around. The viral post made the case that Hollywood keeps casting him as violent men because he draws on real experience, and that offscreen he’s channeled that same discipline into a deliberate show of respect.
“What we expect our husbands and boyfriends to do,” one commenter wrote. Not everyone agreed: “If you’re so worried, not putting your arm around her at all is another option. This seems performative.”
Bernthal, 49, is best known for The Punisher and Shane on “The Walking Dead,” but says the center of his actual life is his marriage to trauma nurse Erin Angle, together since 2010, and the three kids they’re raising together. He’s spoken openly about the example he wants to set for his sons: “I want them to see kindness as masculine, not a sign of weakness.”
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