Michael Moore: Clint Eastwood Once Told Me ‘I Will Kill You’ If You Interview Me

Director Clint Eastwood attends the Museum of the Moving Image salute to Clint Eastwood with a special screening of "Invictus" in New York, on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

After a few weeks of taking shots at Clint Eastwood’s Iraq War drama “American Sniper,” Michael Moore wrote a Facebook post on Thursday confirming rumors that Eastwood once threatened to “kill” and “shoot” him.

“Ten years ago this past week, Clint Eastwood stood in front of the National Board of Review awards dinner and announced to me and to the crowd that he would ‘kill’ me if I ever came to his house with my camera for an interview,” Moore wrote.

“I’ll kill you,” Moore recalls Eastwood as saying. After Moore laughed nervously, Eastwood allegedly repeated the threat.

‘”I mean it,” he barked, and the audience grew more quiet. ‘I’ll shoot you,'” the filmmaker wrote.

Eastwood’s legal representation did not immediately respond to TPM’s request for comment on Friday.

Moore wrote that he was confirming the story after a post by Salon accurately recounted the incident at the Nation Board of Review awards show. The New York Daily News reported on Eastwood’s remarks at the time, in an article published Jan. 13, 2005.

Moore has also recounted the incident before, in an article for the Daily Beast in 2012.

The director of “Fahrenheit 9/11” has questioned the merits of Eastwood’s “American Sniper” and the real-life character of the film’s subject Chris Kyle.

“My uncle killed by sniper in WW2,” he tweeted on Jan. 18. “We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren’t heroes. And invaders r worse.”

Moore’s remarks have supplied Fox News with plenty of segments in which hosts and guests expressed outrage over his criticisms.

Anger over Moore’s tweets also landed former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) in an impromptu photo-op Friday where she posed next to a placard that read “Fuc_ You Michael Moore.”

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. Grandpa, come here and have a seat in that chair you were talking to.

  2. ‘Do you feel lucky, punk?’

  3. Moore is just getting started…

  4. Moore should now film himself conducting a 1 hour interview of the empty chair containing Clint Eastwood.

    Edit: Haha…it’s so perfect actually. I can see it now…a whole segment devoted to showing the empty chair containing Clint Eastwood video footage of Clint Eastwood interviewing the empty chair containing President Obama and then asking the empty chair containing Clint Eastwood all sorts of questions about what really appears to be either a “senior moment” brought on by grandpa getting his daily meds wrong or a just complete mental breakdown. The circularity and irony involved would be off the charts lol

  5. My Dad always said to me if I make a threat to anyone I’d do better to carry through with it because no one likes a bully.

    In retrospect, I’ve never threatened anyone with anything.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

62 more replies

Participants

Avatar for doremus_jessup Avatar for lestatdelc Avatar for pluckyinky Avatar for littlegirlblue Avatar for mmurdoch Avatar for brainpicnic Avatar for leftflank Avatar for chammy Avatar for trippin Avatar for teenlaqueefa Avatar for meangreen Avatar for mrcomments Avatar for sniffit Avatar for chelsea530 Avatar for chuck_voellinger Avatar for tomanjeri Avatar for ignoreland Avatar for dorado Avatar for tao Avatar for barblzz Avatar for kitty Avatar for seedoubleyou Avatar for an_american Avatar for answerthis

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: