It is and no one has asked him to. It’s false equivalence - he’s not being asked to slag him off, in fact in the case that this was an obvious piece of PR he’d be unwise to do so. What he needn’t do is in the same breath say ‘nice guy’ and call fans ‘negative’ that’s the difference. He thinks he’s a nice chap over a pizza, fine but don’t punctuate it with the message they want.