Not everyone is happy to see their life portrayed on the big screen. From Mark Zuckerberg to David Letterman to Jada Pinkett Smith, some famous people have serious reservations about the films about them.
Hunter S. Thompson, “Where the Buffalo Roam” (1980)
Hunter S. Thompson wasn’t happy about the movie that was a semi-biography of his life.
“Horrible pile of crap. [Bill] Murray did a good job. But it was a bad script,” he said in an interview. “You can’t beat a bad script. It was just a horrible movie. A cartoon. But Bill Murray did a good job. We actually wrote and shot several different endings and beginnings and they all got cut out in the end. It was disappointing. Not to mention that I have to live with it. It’s like go into a bar somewhere and people start to giggle and you don’t know why, and they’re all watching that f—ing movie.”
Michael Oher, “The Blind Side” (2009)
“The Blind Side” won an Oscar for Sandra Bullock as a white suburban mom who took in a troubled Black youth and supported him during his rise to college and the NFL, but Michael Oher — the young Black linebacker at the center of the story — has long voiced reservations about the film. Back in 2011, he complained that the film “portrayed me as dumb instead of as a kid who never had consistent academic instruction and ended up thriving once he got it” — and falsely suggested he was a football novice before the Tuohy family took him. He later said the film has “taken away from my football” by raising false expectations and higher scrutiny.
Lil’ Kim, “Notorious” (2009)
According to MTV, Lil’ Kim blasted the 2009 movie about the life and death of Notorious B.I.G., saying, “most of the story is bullsh–.” She also expressed her disappointment over the decision to cast Naturi Naughton to play her.
Mark Zuckerberg, “The Social Network” (2010)
Zuckerberg said that the producers of 2010’s “The Social Network” “made it seem like my whole motivation for building Facebook was so I could get girls, right? And they completely left out the fact that my girlfriend, I’ve been dating since before I started Facebook.”
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, “Winnie Mandela” (2011)
The South African civil-rights icon voiced strong objections to the 2011 biopic about her struggle to end apartheid — and even tried to stop production. “I think it is an insult,” she told CNN, carefully adding that she felt no ill will toward American actress Jennifer Hudson, who portrayed her. “It is a total disrespect to come to South Africa, make a movie about my struggle, and call that movie some translation of a romantic life of Winnie Mandela.”
Marc Schiller, “Pain & Gain” (2013)
Marc Schiller, one of the victims of the Sun Gym Gang, wasn’t happy that Michael Bay turned his book into a comedy.
“Obviously at the end they tried to kill me — and it wasn’t that funny when they tried to kill me,” Schiller told the Huffington Post. “They did run me over with a car twice after trying to blow me up in the car. I was in a coma and somehow I got out. … It wasn’t that funny because I had substantial injuries. … The way they tell it made it look like a comedy. You also gotta remember that not only I went through this, but certain people were killed, so making these guys look like nice guys is atrocious.”
Julian Assange, “The Fifth Estate” (2013)
According to Express, Julian Assange begged Benedict Cumberbatch to turn down the role in the biopic, calling it “toxic, deceitful” and “wretched.”
“I believe you are a good person, but I do not believe that this film is a good film,” Assange wrote. “You will be used, as a hired gun, to assume the appearance of the truth in order to assassinate it. To present me as someone morally compromised and to place me in a falsified history. To create a work, not of fiction, but of debased truth.”
David Letterman, “The Late Shift” (2014)
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Letterman talked about the movie that recounted his battle with Jay Leno to fill “The Tonight Show” chair after Johnny Carson retired. John Michael Higgins played him in the movie.
“The guy who’s playing me — and I’m sure he’s a fine actor — but his interpretation seems to be that I’m, well, a circus chimp. He looks like he’s insane, like he’s a budding psychopath. And afterward I thought, ‘Well, maybe this is how I strike people as being.’”
Jada Pinkett Smith, “All Eyez on Me” (2017)
Jada Pinkett Smith took to Twitter to share her discontent with how her relationship with Tupac Shakur was portrayed, saying it was “deeply hurtful.”
