Spike Lee Pushes 9/11 Conspiracy Theories While Promoting His New Documentary

Acclaimed director Spike Lee has been busy promoting his new HBO documentary series about New York, titled NYC Epicenters 9/11-2021½, which explores the city’s evolution through 9/11, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the BLM protests.

Lee’s unusual comments on the September 11 attacks, however, attracted the most attention during his press tour.

Notably, the final episode of Lee’s documentary series includes interviews with members of a group called “Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth,” i.e., 9/11 “truthers.” 

Variety’s review of the series briefly mentions the conspiracy content, saying that Lee is “in clear agreement” with the 9/11 truthers he interviewed.

In an interview with New York Times reporter Reggie Ugwu regarding his thoughts on 9/11, Lee made it quite clear that he questions the official narrative of the tower collapse, stating: 

“I got questions. And I hope that maybe the legacy of this documentary is that Congress holds a hearing, a congressional hearing about 9/11 … The amount of heat that it takes to make steel melt, that temperature’s not reached …. And then the juxtaposition of the way Building 7 fell to the ground — when you put it next to other building collapses that were demolitions, it’s like you’re looking at the same thing.”

Lee seems to be implying that the collapse of the Twin Towers was due to a controlled demolition, rather than the impact of the planes, a conspiracy theory that once ran wild on the internet, especially after the release of 9/11 conspiracy documentary, Loose Change. 

But Lee making the old “jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams” argument in 2021 feels almost quaint – that widely cited and thoroughly debunked theory was once massively popular, to the point where it transcended into a semi-ironic meme.

Experts argue that you don’t have to melt steel to weaken it to the point where it collapses (and those planes probably did quite a bit of damage too), yet somehow, the theory stubbornly persists.  

The internet reacted with a mixture of disappointment and amusement to the revelation that Lee, a beloved cultural figure, seems to be a 9/11 truther.

It isn’t the first time Lee has included conspiratorial content in his work; his 2006 Hurricane Katrina documentary When the Levees Broke was also criticized for including unfounded conspiracy theories.

Despite the mild controversy, both When the Levees Broke and NYC Epicenters 9/11-2021½ have been heavily praised by critics and audiences; neither of the documentaries are defined by their conspiratorial leanings. 

Lee went on to say that it’s up to the audience to judge for themselves. However, when Ugwu called him out for not saying “make up your own mind” about vaccine conspiracies or the presidential election being stolen, the director responded with,

“People are going to think what they think, regardless.”