Jared Padalecki Clarifies Nature Of Twitter Conversation With Jensen Ackles Surrounding ‘Supernatural’ Prequel – Update

UPDATED, 7:06 PM: Supernatural’s Jared Padalecki has further opened up about his Twitter exchanges back in June with former co-star Jensen Ackles, chalking the situation up to a misunderstanding.

“I love Jensen deeply. He’s my brother,” the actor said in an interview with The New York Times published August 12. “He has been for many years, and he always will be, no matter what.”

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The conversation between the actors began to unfold when Padalecki learned via Twitter of Supernatural prequel The Winchesters, which Ackles is exec producing with his wife, Danneel, as Deadline first reported.

“Dude. Happy for you. Wish I heard about this some way other than Twitter,” Padalecki wrote with a retweet of Deadline’s story. “I’m excited to watch, but bummed that Sam Winchester had no involvement whatsoever.”

While fans believed Padalecki might be joking when he suggested that he was blindsided, he made it clear that he was not. By the next morning, though, it seemed that the air between Padalecki and Ackles had cleared.

Padalecki told the Times that with his initial tweet, he wasn’t looking to fire shots at Ackles, but simply trying to clarify that he had no part in the prequel project. “It was just one of those things that because it was online, and people were assuming I was part of it, I really wanted to just say: ‘Hey, I’m not keeping a secret from you guys. I just don’t know about this,’” he said. “And I should be old enough to know better than to put something out there and expect that people will understand.

“It’s hard to tweet a specific tone. If you write it online, it’s like, ‘Oh, he doesn’t know! They’re going to kill each other! The world is ending!’” he added. “And I’m like, ‘No, no, no.’ [Laughs.] I try to avoid social media as much as possible because of that.”

Padalecki ultimately spoke with Ackles the day after he made his initial post, learning at that time that the project was in the very early stages of development. “He just kind of explained: ‘Man, it’s not picked up yet. It’s not even written yet.’ He knows and I know how much ‘Supernatural’ means to both of us, and it wasn’t a secret he was trying to keep, necessarily. It was just something that he didn’t feel really even existed yet,” the actor shared. “But he has been like: ‘Hey, I’ll let you know what’s going on [going forward].’”

Padalecki worked with Ackles on The CW’s Supernatural for 15 years, portraying the character of Sam Winchester. He now stars as the title character in the network’s Walker, Texas Range reboot, Walker.

The Winchesters is billed as the epic, untold love story of the Winchester brothers’ parents, John and Mary. The story will be told from the perspective of Sam’s brother Dean (Ackles), who will serve as narrator. Warner Bros. Television is set to produce the series, written and executive produced by Supernatural alum Robbie Thompson.

PREVIOUSLY, JUNE 25: All’s well that ends well. After some Supernatural drama that mobilized the series’ legions of fans Thursday night and Friday morning, showcasing the series’ massive social media reach, the #spnfamily is happily back together after a heart-to-heart between Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki.

For 15 years, Ackles and Padalecki starred together on Supernatural as brothers Dean and Sam Winchester. Now Ackles is spearheading a prequel about the brothers’ parents, The Winchesters, which Padalecki appeared unaware of until Deadline broke the news about the project Thursday afternoon.

“Dude. Happy for you. Wish I heard about this some way other than Twitter,” Padalecki wrote with a retweet of Deadline’s story. “I’m excited to watch, but bummed that Sam Winchester had no involvement whatsoever.”

Fans were confused by Padalecki’s reaction and thought he was joking about being blindsided. He was not.

“This is the first I’ve heard about it,” he said in a followup tweet Thursday night. “I’m gutted.”

Padalecki’s comments whipped Supernatural fans into a frenzy, prompting the actor to appeal for calm and civility on Friday morning.

“Please PLEASE don’t send any hate or threats,” he wrote on Twitter. “I care deeply about everybody involved and would be in true misery if any of them were harmed or threatened.”

By late morning on Friday, peace was restored after a chat between the two longtime co-stars.

“The show is early in the process with miles to go,” Padalecki wrote on Twitter. “We’ve travelled a lot of roads together, and sometimes those damn roads have bumps. Bumps don’t stop us. Once brothers, always brothers.”

As Deadline reported, Ackles and his wife, Danneel, are executive producing The Winchesters, which is in development at the CW, the network where Supernatural aired 14 of its 15 seasons. Told from the perspective of narrator Dean Winchester (Ackles), The Winchesters is the epic, untold love story of the brothers’ parents, John and Mary Winchester.

The studio behind Supernatural, Warner Bros. Television, where Jensen and Danneel Ackles’ Chaos Machine Productions has an overall deal, produces The Winchesters, written/executive produced by Supernatural alum Robbie Thompson. Padalecki stars in the CW’s most watched series, Walker.

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