Celebrity News

Amar’e ad gets Spidey tights tangled

Spider-man has gotten his tights in a twist after being dissed by an MSG ad featuring New York Knick Amar’e Stoudemire. The backlash has gotten bad enough that Madison Square Garden tells Page Six it’s now pulling the offending ads.

Posters for the MSG network recently popped up around town pumping the Knicks’ new season with a picture of Stoudemire glowering and a tag line touting: “It’s Friday night. You can either see a Broadway harness malfunctioning or you can watch real men fly.”

That’s an obvious dig at “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” the musical with high-flying stunts that made the show a punch-line when five different actors were injured.

Ironically, Stoudemire seems more injury prone these days than the “Spider-Man” cast: As the Knicks opened their season Friday with a rousing win against the Miami Heat, Amar’e wasn’t doing any “flying.” He’s out for six to eight weeks after a preseason injury.

After the Stoudemire ads rolled out, Broadway blogs were up-in-arms. “What does it mean to be a ‘real man?’ ” asked one theater post. “[MSG implies] it means being an athlete on the court — but definitely not being an actor on Broadway . . . Why is Madison Square Garden putting itself in competition with Broadway?”

Commenters slammed the ads as “offensive,” “embarrassing,” “insulting to one of NYC’s oldest institutions.”

“I’ve known dancers male and female who’ve performed with concussions,” said a performer on a Broadway site.

When we contacted MSG, they said: “The ad was simply bad judgement on our part,” a rep told us. “We’re in the process of having them immediately removed. We apologize to anyone who was offended.”

A source said Stoudemire and the Knicks had no direct involvement with the campaign.

Before MSG said it was taking the ads down, a “Spider-Man” rep said — in an apparent reference to the Knicks playoff defeat last season — “While we root for all of New York’s hometown teams, we’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that Spider-Man’s record remains undefeated.” Seems like Spidey won this battle as well.