Beast Star Idris Elba Had A Bad Encounter With A Bat In His Shower

In his latest film, the action-thriller "Beast," actor Idris Elba faces off against one of nature's deadliest predators: the lion. As Dr. Nate Samuels, Elba takes on the king of the jungle all by himself, but as Idris Elba, actor, he struggled to handle a much smaller beast. While on location shooting "Beast" in Limpopo, South Africa, Elba and his wife tangled with a bat in the bathroom, and Elba abandoned his beloved to deal with the winged mammal all on her own. That's not very heroic behavior, especially when you consider that his wife had flown to Limpopo to help him out after he contracted COVID, but maybe there's more to the story. Or maybe Elba just really, really doesn't like small, furry creatures, and his fear of rats in "The Suicide Squad" didn't require much acting. Either way, we know that it's unlikely that we'll ever see him in a Batman flick. No bats, man.

In an interview with The Breakfast Club, Elba explained that he was celebrating his birthday with his wife, presumably after he had recovered from COVID, and they were taking a shower together in their thatched-roof lodgings in Limpopo. There were plenty of critters crawling around at night, he said, and they could often hear them in the roof, but on this particular day, a bat somehow got into the shower. His wife pointed out the bat and Elba's first instinct was to just get the heck out of there:

"Here's the logic behind leaving ... It's a two-bit shower. I was like, 'If I get out I can open the door, take this thing out!' But I didn't do that, I just left. My wife was like, 'You left me!' I was like, 'Quick, get out of there! There's a bat in the shower!'"

When co-host Angela Yee points out that his wife flew down to help take care of him when he had COVID, Elba says simply, "...it was a bat in my shower. We out," and then points out that he was just out "quicker" than his wife was. I get it, bats carry rabies and it's never a good idea to be in close quarters with a random animal, but he could have at least shown a little chivalry and held the door open for his wife or something. I get the feeling that between the bat situation and his daughter not getting cast, "Beast" could have put Elba into quite the family feud. Thankfully, it seems like everything turned out alright, and we can all see him pretend to fight a lion on the big screen. 

"Beast" is currently playing in theaters.