One Producer Refused to Work With Angelina Jolie, Calling Her “A Spoiled Brat”

Back in 2014, a big hacking incident hit Sony Pictures hard. On December 9, a group called the Guardians of Peace used some nasty software called Shamoon to steal tons of data from the company’s computers. This led to a huge leak of internal stuff, like emails and documents.

From what came out in the news reports after that, some of those emails showed Sony’s co-chair Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin trading messages that got called out as racist. They were chatting about Pascal’s upcoming meeting with President Barack Obama, and they suggested asking him about movies on African American themes, like Django Unchained, 12 Years a Slave, The Butler, and Amistad, which all deal with slavery or times before civil rights.

Rudin threw in a line saying, I bet he likes Kevin Hart. The leaked emails also spilled details on Rudin’s beef with Angelina Jolie. According to those messages, Rudin was furious because Jolie had tried to get director David Fincher to bail on his Steve Jobs movie project.

Fincher did end up dropping it, and the idea was to delay things so Jolie could finish directing her first film, In the Land of Blood and Honey. Rudin fired off an email to Pascal, saying, “I’m not destroying my career over a minimally talented spoiled brat who thought nothing of shoving this off her plate for 18 months so she could go direct a movie.”

He added, “I have no desire to be making a movie with her, or anybody, that she runs and we don’t.” Rudin didn’t stop there in his rant. He went on about a possible Cleopatra movie, writing, “There is no movie of Cleopatra to be made (and how that is a bad thing given the insanity and the rampaging ego of this spoiled woman, and the cost of this movie is beyond me).” And he wrapped it up with, “I have zero appetite for the indulgence of spoiled brats, and I will tell her this myself if you don’t.”

It was clear from the emails that Rudin was fed up with Jolie trying to call the shots on projects. Later on, Rudin spoke up about the whole mess. He explained that the emails were private emails between friends and colleagues written in haste and without much thought or sensitivity.

He also said he was profoundly and deeply sorry.

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